Guangdong police Monday urged the province's large number of football fans to shun illegal betting gangs during the month-long World Cup.

"Those who gamble on the games will violate laws and regulations and will be seriously punished," said Xiao Shengxian, a police officer from Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Public Security.

He added special campaigns would be launched to combat illegal betting during the tournament, which kicked-off in Germany on Friday.

Officers will focus on underground football betting gangs and known betting locations in the province, he said.

According to Chinese laws and relevant regulations, gambling and betting is illegal on the mainland.

Illegal betting is believed to have affected sales over the past few months of local official football lottery tickets in the southern Chinese province, which borders Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions.

Police cracked several cases involving betting on football matches in the cities of Guangzhou, Dongguan and Yunfu in April, detaining many suspects and seizing large sums of money.

Guangzhou police closed two football betting locations in the city's Haizhu and Tianhe districts, detaining 12 suspects.

A total of 12 computers and cash totaling 2.45 million yuan (US$306,250) and HK$180,000 (US$23,225) were seized in the two locations.

Police in Dongguan established a special task force that consisted of 36 officers.

Five suspects were detained and more than 36 million yuan (US$4.5 million) was seized when an underground betting location in the city's Guancheng District was busted.

Officers in Yunfu, in the western part of Guangdong, also cracked an underground betting location, detaining five suspects and seizing 1.46 million yuan (US$182,500).

(China Daily June 13, 2006)