Liang Musheng, a law professor at Wuhan-based Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Hubei Province, said that this particular change would prevent team leaders from forming personal relations with the agencies they inspect.

"The task-oriented designation will make team leadership positions temporary, which will guarantee the independence of the inspection teams," Liang said.

Raiding the rats

"Since their establishment, central inspection teams have focused on finding corruption committed by senior provincial and ministerial officials," said Wang Yukai, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance.

Due to the inspectors' efforts, many corrupt senior officials have been exposed and punished, including Chen Liangyu, former Shanghai Party chief implicated in a pension scandal involving 3.45 billion yuan ($561 million). Chen was removed from office and arrested in 2006 and sentenced to 18 years in jail for bribe-taking and abuse of power in 2008.

"This year, inspection teams will also look into the assets of officials' immediate family members," said Wang, who also suggested breaking from the routine inspection model, as it would prevent agencies from preparing in advance or otherwise hindering inspections.

Inspection teams have released their contact information for their current operations, including phone numbers, e-mail addresses and post-office box addresses, to allow easier public access.

According to the CCDI, central inspection teams welcome people to report under their real names, but if whistleblowers refuse they will not insist.

Those who feel justice has eluded them seize the opportunity to follow inspection teams and voice their grievances. When an inspection team visited Shanghai in April 2011, hundreds of petitioners rallied outside the team's office holding bed sheets scrawled with slogans spelling out their concerns. Despite the team's inability to take on individual cases, it was able to pass on details of cases to related departments.

Rather than relying on tip-offs, inspection teams will often lure their "prey" by inviting officials suspected of corruption to discreet meetings.

"Private talks are one of the most important parts of our work," Qi Peiwen, a former inspection team leader, said in a 2008 China Central Television interview. "The advantage of private talks is that officials feel relaxed and more willing to tell you things if they can speak in confidence."

Li Baojin, Tianjin's former chief prosecutor, was exposed for corruption at a private meeting.

In 2006, a year before Li was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for embezzling funds totaling 20 million yuan ($3.25 million), Li told Qi's team that if they had any problems in Tianjin they could always come to him.

"Anything the mayor cannot solve, I can," Li assured them at the time. His comments proved to be his undoing, triggering an investigation by Qi's team into just how influential Li was.

Their investigation revealed Li accepted bribes from eight Tianjin-based firms between 1996 and 2006 when he was the city's chief prosecutor and deputy police chief. Li was executed in 2009.

Qi admits that not every official is willing to expose their superior's shady dealings. Often inspection teams must coax them into providing damning information.

Xu Danei, a columnist for the Chinese-language website of Financial Times, has called on the central authorities to set up a special online inspection team to intensify the fight against corruption.

By the end of 2012, the number of Internet users in China had reached 564 million. The online community contributed 12 percent of clues leading to corruption probes, or 300,100 items, received by the CCDI and the Ministry of Supervision from 2008 to 2012, according to Zhang Shaolong, Deputy Director of the Letters and Calls Office under the CCDI.

"So many tip-offs come online, some of which are useful and others are wrong. But I believe inspection teams should be able to verify them all," Xu said.

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