Wan Qingliang, former Party chief of Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, cried and pleaded guilty to charges of accepting bribes and neglect of duty on Friday.

Wan, born in 1964, was tried at Nanning Intermediate People's Court in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region for taking bribes worth more than 111.25 million yuan ($17.25 million) from 15 companies and individuals while in office.

In a single case alone, Wan accepted bribes valued at more than 50 million from a company in the Shenzhen special economic zone after he had used his power to help the company win a government development project. In another single case, Wan took bribes valued at 37.9 million yuan from another company.