This would only work if the top level official wants bribe only for high level project. The approach would fail in India, where every amount of bribe has fixed distribution, from bottom most official to the top.

Say for example you wallet got lost, and you need to file an police report. The bribe you pay at police station would not be to the local official alone, but a cut of it would extend all the way over to top till the Home secretary. No one wants to punish anyone in such cases. This allows top-most official to acquire a much larger wealth than they would if they stopped corruption at lower level