BEIJING
Chinese prosecutors have investigated more than 3,000 officials at the county level or higher in the first 11 months of 2014 on suspicion of bribery, an increase of 36.3 percent, according to the Supreme People's Procuratorate.
Xu Jinhui, the procuratorate's anti-bribery head, said Thursday that the 3,077 officials were among 39,533 people -- involved in 30,414 cases -- probed between January and November last year.
State news agency Xinhua cited him as explaining that they included 24 provincial, ministerial or higher level officials.
The number of cases rose by 11.7 percent compared to the same period the previous year, with a 7.1 percent increase in the number of people under investigation.
While 611 fugitives were repatriated from overseas through the efforts of prosecutorial agencies, more than 7,400 people were placed under investigation for offering bribes -- an increase of almost 38 percent.
Chinese President Xi Jinping launched an anti-corruption campaign in 2013 that has included a series of high-profile investigations into Communist Party of China cadres.
Last month, Xinhua reported that 71,748 corrupt officials -- high-level violators known locally as "tigers" and low-level "flies" -- were punished in 2014 for violations of anti-corruption rules.
