YINCHUAN -- A former senior land official in northwest China on Friday was sentenced to life imprisonment for taking millions of yuan in bribes and holding a large amount of suspect property.

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Wang Yingfu, 55, former deputy director of the Land and Resources Department of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, was accused of taking bribes worth 2.7 million yuan (346,154 US dollars) when approving land deals and distributing construction projects, according to the Intermediate People's Court of Zhongwei City.

Wang was also accused of possessing 8.83 million yuan (1.1 million US dollars), 159,028 US dollars, 3,200 euros and 110,849 Japanese yen that he could not account for.

Wang took the bribes from 1999 to 2003, when he worked as director of Ningxia Land Resources Bureau, deputy director of Ningxia Land and Resources Department and chairman of Ningxia Disabled Persons Association, the court heard.

Wang disappeared on January 23 last year after prosecutors began to investigate him. He was arrested in Beijing on February 3 and officially detained by police on February 14.

China has been strengthening supervision of land development, an area regarded as "energy and capital intensive" and a breeding ground for corruption, given land transactions are the most effective way for local governments to boost economic returns.

In September 2006, the central authorities gave serious warnings to two senior Henan officials, Li Xinmin, secretary of the Provincial Political and Judiciary Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and Wang Wenchao, Party chief of the CPC Zhengzhou city committee, for the illegal expansion of a post-secondary school campus on to farmland.