Beijing prosecutors have obtained convictions of 102 bureau-head level officials on corruption and bribery charges over the past five years, a top prosecutor said on Thursday.

The prosecutors handled 270 corruption cases each involving sums exceeding 1 million yuan (about 137,000 U.S. dollars) during that period, the official said.

"A total of 1,627 corruption cases have gone through proceedings involving 1,885 civil servants over the past five years," said Mu Ping, acting chief prosecutor of the Beijing People's Procuratorate, speaking at the first session of the 13th Beijing Municipal People's Congress.

The cases have brought down many high-ranking officials including Bi Yuxi, former head of a state-owned highway building company, Ma De, former party secretary of Suihua City in northeastern Heilongjiang Province; Zheng Xiaoyu, former director of China's Food and Drug Administration and Tian Fengshan, former minister of Land and Resources.

Mu said that the prosecutor's office had stepped up investigations of alleged malfeasance concerning Beijing's Olympic construction projects. It has brought charges against 14 of 39 suspects in cases involving the theft of construction materials at Olympic sports venues or graft connected with product licenses.

(Xinhua News Agency January 24, 2008)