Beijing police on Monday busted the largest online prostitution racket and detained 151 people, including all the five major leaders of the gang.

The youngest to be held was a 15-years-old girl. Among the others were 63 organizers, 38 suspected prostitutes and 45 clients, Zhang Xiaoguang, an official with the public security management department of Beijing Public Security Bureau, said yesterday.

Police began gathering detailed information on online prostitution rings through some websites, QQ chat service, private blogs and chatrooms in December.

After further investigation, they found that all the information had come from one gang stationed in the Xiluoyuan area of southern Beijing's Fengtai District and the posters were sent out from a nearby Internet caf.

About 30 non-Beijingers, all of them men, were employed from 8 am to 10 pm every day to tap clients through the cyber caf.

More than 90 per cent of the gang members are from Gong'an County of Central China's Hubei Province, from where Lei Yong and the four other leaders hired them, promising them "a good pay with accommodation".

The gang has hired a man surnamed Zhao, too, who used to provide contraceptives.

The girls in 16 brothels used to charge 300 yuan ($37.5) per client and entertain up to 10 visitors a day, and had to pay half of the amount to the gang.

The clients were mostly people with good educational backgrounds who preferred to get information on online.

At 8 am on Monday, police sent more than 300 men to the brothels and the Internet caf to detain the suspects. Twenty-two of the suspects are in criminal custody and 100 under public security custody.

(China Daily January 24, 2007)