A senior tax official and three businessmen have been sentenced to death by a court in China, in what Chinese newspapers have described as the country's biggest ever case of tax fraud.

The fraud, in the south-eastern province of Zhejiang, involved the equivalent of seven-hundred-and-sixty million dollars.

State media said officials and more than two-hundred firms had conspired to counterfeit value-added tax invoices over a three-year period.

A further eight-five people were arrested in the case.