China captures 702,000 gambling suspects in 2005

The Chinese Ministry of Public Security on July 14 announced that police authorities has cracked 163,000 gambling cases and seized 702,000 suspects involving in gambling since the Ministry launched a special crackdown on gambling nationwide in early January.

The police authorities across China also seized gambling capital worth of 2.33 billion yuan (281 million US dollars), as well as 77,000 computers and video game players, which were used for gambling.

Seventy major gambling cases, which were jointly superintended by the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security, have all been cracked.

Among the already-seized suspects, 1,479 suspects have been sentenced into prison, 3,874 have been prosecuted, 5,115 are being re-educated through labor, and 105,000 are still under detention.

Among the seized suspects, 1,617 suspects were officials. and 47 of them were section chiefs or heads of government departments.

Source: Xinhua