Police busted four porn websites, detaining nine suspects for the on-line operation.

The four websites involved about 600,000 registered members. They were mainly managed by a gang of young people in their twenties, while the servers were based in the United States to evade the monitoring of porn websites in China, the police said.

The campaign was directed by the Ministry of Public Security and carried out by the Public Security Department of north China's Shanxi Province.

The suspects in charge of the maintenance of the websites, most found to be college students, came from about 20 provinces, municipalities and regions in China.

Local police in Shanxi spotted the porn site, Qingse Liuyuetian or Erotic June, in June this year, which dubbed itself as "the first adult community for Chinese."

It peddled erotic pictures, articles, movies and links to other porn sites. The registered members had to pay for visiting the sites and the fees varied from 199 yuan (US$23.98) and 266 yuan (US$32.05) per year, to 666 yuan (US$88.24) and 3,999 yuan (US$481.80) for life.

The suspects also managed other three porn websites including Tianshang Renjian, Huaren Yidianyuan, and Qingse Hai'anxian in China.

Police hunted the suspects in seven provinces and municipalities, including Fujian, Jilin, Guangdong, Liaoning, Anhui, Hubei and Beijing, before the seven major suspects were seized.

(Xinhua News Agency November 22, 2005)