Beijing police have announced the arrest of a gang of 14 purse snatchers who committed more than 300 offences in the past 16 months.

The gang usually targeted women walking alone on the city's ring roads at night, said Wan Yun, an officer of Haidian District Police Station, on Monday.

The gang covered their motorcycles' license plates and escaped quickly, meaning victims failed to see their appearances clearly rendering police unable to help, Wan said.

However, the gang was undone when one member used a stolen mobile phone to make a call.

On January 27, a Beijing woman surnamed Yang had her purse snatched by two men riding on a motorcycle at 9 pm at Yangfangdian in Haidian District.

The purse contained a mobile phone, an MP3 player and 500 yuan (US$62).

After hearing the woman's report, the police were convinced that this was the work of the gang.

Three days later, Yang reported the loss of her phone to the telecoms operator so that they could issue a new SIM card.

When she read the mobile's call list she found a number that she was convinced she had not dialled.

Yang immediately reported the important clue to the police.

The police traced the telephone to Gu'an County in Hebei Province, and the owner's son surnamed Song appeared a likely suspect.

On February 20, police seized Song, who quickly confessed to the gang's crimes. With Song's confession, the police rounded up all the other suspects by June.

The head of the group, a 25-year-old man surnamed Lu, used to live a well-off life. However, he became hooked to gambling and lost his fortune in 2004.

In April 2005, Lu recruited some young men from his county and came to Beijing to snatch purses.

At the beginning, Lu would drive a car and his cronies would sit in the front passenger seat, snatching purses of women walking on the roadside.

Later, they improved their skills and Lu assigned four people for every "mission" and divided them into two groups.

Two of them rode on motorcycles in the front to snatch purses and two drove a car behind as a shield.

When victims or passers-by began to chase the motorcycle, their car would speed up to block them so that the motorcycle could escape.

According to the Beijing Morning Post, Beijing police have busted 10 purse-snatching gangs since February.

(China Daily July 12, 2006)