China police crack down on gun-selling network

Police in China have cracked down on a forum site where members sold and bought firearms, breaking the law.

According to an announcement by the country's Ministry of Public Security (MPS) on Thursday, the police found a number of people selling guns through a forum named "beifanglianmeng", or "northern union" since Mar. 2012.

Investigations found the forum had more than 80,000 registered members across 29 provincial regions, of which 900 members were under suspicion of selling guns and ammunition.

China has a strict policy on gun control, and private citizens are not allowed to own and sell firearms, the announcement noted.

The crackdown led to the arrest of more than 530 suspects and over 1,000 guns, 1,000 bullets and a large quantity of accessories were confiscated. The ministry also commanded police departments in the 29 provincial regions to arrest the suspects and destroy the gun-selling network on Sep. 25.

Earlier this week, the ministry also announced its Web policing campaign led to the arrest of suspects and deletion of "harmful" Web messages. Cybercrime in China had extended to the offline world from online activities such as cybertheft, hacking and pornography to the sale of guns, and fake medicine, the ministry noted.