Chinese police shut down over 5,000 fake websites of central authorities

BEIJING -- China has closed over 5,000 websites, 20,000 online accounts and 16,000 online groups faking central authorities to commit illegal activities since 2016, according to the Ministry of Public Security on Thursday.

The crackdown targeted on websites, online accounts and groups which use words such as "central," "China," "national" and "all-China" in the title but have no connections to any official organizations.

These counterfeit websites extremely impair the influence and credibility of central authorities and break the order of the management of society and the internet, according to the ministry.

The contents of these websites and accounts are of varying quality and difficult to tell the real from the counterfeit, and some of them even involved fraud, forced trading and racketeering, according to the ministry.

A number of cases that occurred across the nation, including in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Datong in northern China's Shanxi Province and Tangshan in northern China's Hebei Province, have been dealt with by local police under the guidance of the ministry.

The ministry also said it will increase efforts on crackdown online crimes, strike fake websites committing illegal activities in the name of central authorities.