NANCHANG, Nov. 28 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of Chinese officials are going abroad every year for alleged study tours, but documents posted in an Internet bulletin board system show some of them are actually tourists using public funds. Their official invitation letters even came with a price tag.

    The article, written by a person who calls him or herself "Chimeiwangliang 2009", claims officials in Xinyu and Wenzhou, both in eastern Zhejiang Province, used public money to pay for overseas travel to Las Vegas, Niagara Falls and other resorts.

    "The Party committee and city government attach importance to the allegations of public money being spent lavishly and an investigation was launched on Thursday," said Liu Yongbin, deputy director of the publicity department of the Xinyu committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on Friday.

    In the Internet article, which spread around the country last week, the author said he or she found a bag containing documents and receipts from the official's trips. The bag was believed to be accidentally left by a travel agent on a subway in Shanghai.

    According to photos of those documents, the Xinyu government paid at least 335,880 yuan (49,142 U.S. dollars) for 11 officials from the city's transport and education bureaus, among others, to go on a 14-day tour in April of this year.

    The article said the purpose of the trip was to "observe human resources management" in Canada and the United States. However, officials only visited tourist attractions such as Stanley Park in Vancouver, Niagara Falls, the United National Headquarters in New York, the Statue of Liberty and Las Vegas casinos.

    Liu Yongbin confirmed the trip took place but did not give further details or corroborate the anonymous Internet posting.

    The article went on to say officials bought four invitation letters for international travel at a price of 11,520 yuan.

    "Members of the tour group shall pay the bills if they are found to have spent public funds for sightseeing. They will be dealt with strictly if they are found responsible of doing activities against the law," Liu added.

    In another city, Wenzhou, online documents in the article show 23 officials spent 649,495 yuan for a 25-day trip in February and March to the United States. Only five of those days were used for administrative management training at Northwestern Polytechnic University.

    An official with the publicity department of the CPC Wenzhou committee said he knew nothing about the trip.

    Liu did not give a timeline for when Xinhua could expect results from the investigation.

    This is not the first exposed scandal involving government officials taking suspicions overseas travels.

    In last August, the CPC demoted a senior law enforcement officer who led a ten-strong delegation to Finland on a forged official invitation only to be refused entry.

    Xu Wenai has been removed from his post as vice procurator-general of east China's Anhui province for wasting public money on the abortive journey, which resulted in the Chinese official being deported the day after their arrival in Finland.

    The scandal emerged after the delegation had to return to China on Nov. 21 last year after they were refused entry to Finland for providing a fake Finish government invitation on Nov. 20, according to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the CPC.

    The CCDI investigation found the delegation also changed their approved route of travel and added the number of destination countries.