Crackdown on graft in rural development fruitful

China's procuratorial organs handled 9,612 corruption cases from January to November 2012 in a crackdown relating to rural development.

The cases involved 14,517 people and more than 2.77 billion yuan (445 million U.S. dollars), according to a statement released Friday by the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP).

The SPP launched a national anti-corruption campaign to safeguard the interests of rural residents in February, focusing on prosecutions in agriculture and other related sectors.

According to the statement, 8,842 suspects have been prosecuted so far and 5,058 have been convicted by various people's courts for bribery and other corrupt behaviors in agriculture-related fields.

The statement said that many of these crimes were committed by employees at grassroots organizations in rural areas and concerned key corruption-prone fields, such as rural infrastructure construction and the confiscation of land and mines.