"Some village officials have been given more than 3 million yuan ($489,000). But they don't know they are accepting bribes. I don't know if they are ignorant of the law or if they are simply playing the fool."

Wang Xiaoling, head of the Party discipline inspection commission of Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, said at a meeting on Friday about an investigation of dozens of grassroots officials in the city's Baiyun district. Up to 81 officials in the district, including a former Party chief and two deputy heads of the district government, were investigated in the first half of the year.