Beijing police smash Internet prostitution ring

BEIJING -- Police in Beijing have arrested 151 suspected prostitutes, customers, and pimps in one of China's biggest-ever crackdowns on organized Internet prostitution, state press said Tuesday.

Over 300 policemen fanned out last week, raiding 18 brothels, mostly located in luxurious villa compounds, and an Internet bar where organizers had posted the sex services online, the Beijing Morning Post said.

Police captured five ringleaders, 63 organizers, 38 prostitutes, and 45 customers, the report said.

The paper said that the crackdown was the biggest in China on an Internet prostitution ring in the past five years, but did not detail any other previous crackdowns.

Organizers had posted information on the sex workers in Internet chatrooms and blogs, offering the option of downloading pictures of the girls in various stages of undress, it said.

Potential customers would also be linked to the girls who would chat with them over the Internet to discuss prices and the places where the trysts would take place, it said.

Up to five prostitutes would be at each of the locales and were paid up to 300 yuan ($38) a day for serving as many as five customers, the paper said.

Beijing is making efforts to tidy up the capital ahead of the 2008 Olympics, with crackdowns on prostitution and drugs a major focus of attention.

Although prostitution was all but wiped out in China following the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949, it has made a strong comeback after 25 years of booming economic reforms.

Pornography, which is also outlawed in China, has widely eluded Chinese censors on the Internet and is easily downloaded from sites both inside and outside China.