An extraordinary smuggling trial (about £5

An extraordinary smuggling trial (about £5.5 billion) began under a veil of secrecy intended to minimise the Communist leadership's embarrassment. In courts in the Fujian province cities of Fuzhou, Putian, Quanzhou, Zhangzhou and Xiamen about 200 government officials, some of them high-ranking, are implicated in the biggest corruption case in the country's history. Chinese web sites were predicting death sentences for at least ten officials.