1,026 suspects nabbed for scalping personal information

Chinese police have arrested 1,026 suspects for illegally obtaining or reselling personal information in a campaign spanning 23 provincial regions, the Ministry of Public Security said on Wednesday.

With the arrests on March 7, police from Beijing, Shanghai and other cities jointly crushed 263 criminal gangs and solved 651 cases of illegal gathering and sales of personal information, according to a statement publicized by the ministry.

Nearly 1 billion pieces of stolen private information were seized by police during the campaign, according to the statement.

The ministry has launched three intensive campaigns to crack down on personal information scalping rings and apprehended more than 3,000 such suspects since 2012, police authorities said.

Investigation showed that staff from government departments or enterprises obtained personal information while they provided services for the public, then resold it to others to make profits.

Some suspects are even alleged to have set up online data exchange platforms to seek quick profits by selling personal information, according to the the statement.

Cases of obtaining personal information for committing telecom or Internet-related fraud accounted for 60 percent of the total solved cases, with robbery and racketeering cases accounting for 30 percent.

Although great achievements has been made, the prevalence of crimes like these and ensuing criminal activities is still serious, an official with the ministry said, adding that the ministry will beef up efforts to curb such practices in the ongoing campaigns.