About 60 officials from Burma’s Customs Department and some 200 traders have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms in Rangoon and Lashio, Shan State, on charges of corruption and illegal trading, according to local sources.

The sentences were made weeks after about 200 customs officials, including the head of the department, Director-General Col Khin Maung Lin, and other high-ranking officials, were rounded up for interrogation in late June.

A Rangoon-based journalist told The Irrawaddy by phone on Thursday that he wasn’t sure yet whether the director-general had been sentenced, but about 60 officials were given prison terms up to 20 years.

Nearly 200 traders also received lengthy sentences on August 8 in Lashio in northern Shan State on charges of illegal trading with China, according to Aung Kyaw Zaw, who lives in the Chinese border town of Ruili.

Aung Kyaw Zaw said on Thursday that the longest sentence-42 years-was handed out to Myint Naing, a local employee of an import-export company. The traders’ arrests followed those of several dozen officials from the Customs Department and the Department of Border Trade (known as Na Sa Ka) last May. Those officials were also reportedly sentenced.

In late July, about two dozens businesspeople were arrested in Myawaddy, a border town opposite Thailand’s Mae Sot. Among the arrested was the president of the Myawaddy Chamber of Commerce. Local sources said that they were charged with tax evasion and the possessing illegal goods.

The Rangoon-based journalist added that some officials from customs headquarters had been removed from their positions. Trials were also ongoing in Rangoon, and more people could be sentenced, he added.