Food executives face graft charges

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A total of 16 former senior executives with the State-owned food enterprise Wenzhou Cailanzi Group have been charged with embezzlement, taking bribes and sharing state-owned assets worth more than 400 million yuan (US$62.68 million),according to the local prosecutors' office.

The corruption case at Wenzhou Cailanzi Group was the most serious of its kind in the city in the past two years. As many as 47 people, including 10 county-level officials, were involved in the case.

Ying Guoquan, former chairman of the Wenzhou Shopping Basket Group, the largest food supply company in the Zhejiang Province city, is alleged, with 15 senior officials, including his son, to have siphoned off 105 million yuan from 2005 to 2010,Shanghai Daily reported.

Ying was also charged with bribing city government officials between 2003 and 2006 to pass control of 216,666 square meters of land worth 116 million yuan to a company controlled by his son. He is also alleged to have given a large part of the state company's business to his son.

Feng Ming, the city government official who altered the circular, was prosecuted on Oct 12.

To reward the officials, Ying is said to have made false reports on the number of employees receiving 112 million yuan in salary from government departments and distributed most of the money to helpful officials.

In addition, Ying was charged with accepting bribes of 250,000 yuan from food vendors when he allocated stalls at food markets.

Ying's son, Ying Feihang, former executive deputy general manager of Wenzhou Cailanzi Development Co, was charged with embezzlement.

Another 14 executives of the two companies were charged with graft and embezzlement.

(China Daily contributed to this story)