Authority vows punishments if thief's accusations true

The provincial discipline committee of Anhui province said two officials accused by a thief of having a large amount of prepaid shopping cards and expensive gifts, will be punished if they were involved in corruption.

The thief, Fang Yunyun, said she stole shopping cards and gifts worth more than 2 million yuan ($323,000) from the two officials' homes in Hefei, the capital of the province, in May. She said she later reported to the provincial discipline committee and the local procuratorate that she also saw ownership papers for a 300-square-meter villa and a 1,800-sq-m plot of land.

Fang has been sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for other acts of stealing but her confessions to stealing from the officials were not taken into account by the local court. The local procuratorate also denied earlier that it had received any such report from Fang.