China announced the results of its first-ever lottery funds audit on Thursday. The National Audit Office revealed various organizations and individuals who embezzled a total of 16.9 billion yuan ($2.7 billion) between 2012 and 2014, garnering 25.7 percent of the 65.6 billion yuan in lottery funds raised in 18 provincial-level regions.
The audit, with a total of 854 public welfare programs, showed that illegal selling of lottery tickets was rampant in the 18 regions.
Various illegal activities included fake projects, unauthorized foreign investment or business operation, shady off-the-books spending, and illegal purchase of equipment and services amounting to 9 billion yuan.
Over 290 organizations were caught to have misused 3.6 billion yuan for building construction, distribution of allowance to employees, purchase of luxury government vehicles, and organization of unnecessary overseas travels.
The National Audit Office has presented 90 cases to related authorities. These cases showed several officials who are suspected to have abused their power, siphoned off funds, and operated illegal betting shops.
There is more than 20.4 billion yuan untouched by financial organizations for over one year now, and there are 34 lottery-funded programs that are unable to operate for different reasons, leaving 268 million yuan untapped in 2014.
Authorities were able to recover 14.51 billion yuan of corrupted money on May 31, and will post updates as soon as pending issues are resolved.
Recent years have shown that the increase of lottery tickets has greatly contributed to social welfare expansion programs.