A senior Chinese prosecutor says more than 200 corrupt officials have fled abroad with illegal earnings, in the latest official figures for official fugitives abroad.

Wang Limin, the vice director of anti-corruption bureau of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, said, "The number is not so huge as those quoted on Internet."

Since 2003, the figures of at least 4,000 corrupt officials each with at least five billion yuan (US$659 million) have been repeated on the Internet.

Wang said only a few officials had been repatriated because of policy and law differences between China and other countries.

"It is hard to collect evidence and arrest corrupt officials due to a lack of judicial assistance agreements with some countries and regions," Wang said.

"The corrupt officials usually attempt to use of these differences to escape punishment and some even make earlier preparations such as laundering illegal money before fleeing."

However, China still actively seeks international cooperation in its fight against corruption. The Ministry of Public Security says 37 corrupt officials were repatriated to Chinese mainland from Hong Kong, Macao and 11 countries such as the United States and Canada last year.

(Xinhua News Agency September 14, 2007)