The crackdown was hailed by provincial security chiefs as a breakthrough in the fight against illegal gambling.

But Luo Juan, deputy director-general of the Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Public Security, said much work in fighting secret Mark Six activities in the province remained.

Mark Six is an illegal gambling event on the Chinese mainland while legal in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Gambling activities that were previously known to be taking place have now been brought under control, Luo said.

Guangdong police launched a special campaign to fight gambling at the end of the last year.

A total of 4,852 gambling cases have been detected since campaign began which include Mark Six, illegal football betting rings and gambling on Hong Kong's horse racing by Guangdong residents.

Police have detained 6,730 suspects, including 1,487 suspected chief criminals and money handlers, during the two-month campaign that ended last week.

Five Taiwan residents and scores of people from Hong Kong and Macao were among the suspects, according to Luo.

A total of 297,476 copies of secret newspaper on Mark Six, sedan cars, computers, printers, fax machines and other tools for gambling were seized.

Most of the gambling cases have been cracked in Guangzhou, Shantou, Shenzhen and Zhuhai special economic zones.

Crimes of this kind have also been detected in Zhongshan, Foshan, Shanwei and Dongguan and other prosperous cities in the Pearl River Delta which borders Hong Kong and Macao.

Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Public Security established a special task force in November to focus on cracking down on provincial gambling events.

The cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Dongguan and Jiangmen also set up their own task forces to fight gambling late last year.

Luo promised to continue to take efforts to fight gambling events in the province later this year to ensure better investment for economic construction and a better living environment for local residents.

Luo urged bankers and other gambling personnel to confess their crimes to police and relevant departments.

(China Daily February 28, 2002)