A former official of the state-run Agricultural Bank of China has been executed for taking bribes and embezzling US$ 1.97 million, the official media reported on Wednesday.

Wen Mengjie, former director of the information technology department of the ABC's Beijing [Images] branch, was executed on Tuesday. He had been found guilty of taking bribes worth US$ 1.4 million during the bank's purchase of electronic equipment and computer software between February 1999 and February 2004, said a Beijing court.

Fifty-year-old Wen was also accused of embezzling US$ 5,70,000 from the bank during the purchase of ATMs, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Wen's crimes came to light after he was captured on closed-circuit-cameras in a bank, repaying home loans worth millions with bags full of cash. The bank staff tipped off investigators at a local anti-corruption bureau, who launched an investigation which lasted ten months.

Investigators said Wen had bought three houses in eastern Beijing in November 2002 with money "obviously exceeding his legal and reasonable income".