Beijing residents who send pornographic text messages or pictures on their cell phones may face fines up to 3,000 yuan (US$385) and two weeks in administrative detention, the local public security department has warned.

Those who sell such content can face jail terms between six months and three years, according to China's criminal law and the law on public security administration.

Over the past three weeks, Beijing police have arrested 19 second-hand cell phone dealers who were found selling mass storage devices containing pornographic pictures or films.

The mass storage chips, which can hold a 60 minute-long film, were being sold for only five or six yuan (US$0.64 to 0.77) each, a spokesman with the Beijing Public Security Bureau told Xinhua.

He said Beijing police were continuing their crackdown on cyber porn sales.

"It's also illegal for the public to download pornographic content from the Internet or to forward it to friends," he said, adding that the severest penalty in such cases would be 10 to 15 days in detention plus a fine up to 3,000 yuan.

China has 461 million cell phone subscribers and 137 million people online -- the world's second-largest number of Internet users after the United States.

(Xinhua News Agency March 28, 2007)