Top officer vows global Internet crime fight

Updated: 2011-08-31 07:07

(Xinhua)

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BEIJING - China's top police officer said Tuesday that public security departments around the country should conduct deeper research on crimes committed through the Internet and improve international law enforcement cooperation.

Meng Jianzhu, State Councilor and Minister of Public Security, made the remarks at a meeting held to mark an operation conducted in cooperation with the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in June that resulted in the arrests of more than 10 individuals distributing online child pornography in the two countries.

"Although China and the US have different judicial systems and cultural values, the two sides share a common view in crime-fighting," Meng said.

Cracking this case was a job well-done, achieved through close cooperation with the FBI via an international police cooperation platform in which web servers circulating the illicit content and the main suspect were captured overseas, he added.

The two countries' police forces jointly shut down a chain of membership-based, Chinese-language pornographic websites targeting Chinese-speaking audiences in China, the US and other countries in June.

The FBI arrested Wang Yong, the websites' primary operator, in the United States on June 23. In a simultaneous raid, Chinese police detained more than 10 people suspected of maintaining the websites in China.

Wang began operating pornographic websites since at least 2007, according to the FBI, and eventually controlled 48 pornographic websites, making his the world's largest Chinese-language chain of pornographic websites.

In China, 18 of Wang's websites offered child pornography, stimulating some criminals to commit more crimes, including rape, according to the ministry.

According to Chinese law, individuals convicted of producing, copying, publishing, selling or distributing pornography face 10 years to life in prison.

Chinese police kept a close eye on Wang's website chain, which had more than 10 million members, for a long time, arresting hundreds of the sites' administrators in China.

Nevertheless, police in China were unable to destroy the chain's source as its main servers and operators were based in the US.

In April 2010, Chinese authorities and the FBI began cooperating on cracking down on the website chain based on their mutual desire to curb the spread of child pornography.

China will continue to strengthen its law enforcement cooperation with foreign countries and vigorously fight transnational illegal activities, especially crimes committed through the Internet, Meng said.