Over the past year, Chinese police forces have uncovered 2,611 piracy cases worth 2.06 billion yuan (about 250 million US dollars) in the audio-visual market and recovered financial losses of 990 million yuan (about 123 million US dollars).

A total of 5,001 suspects were arrested for involvement in these piracy cases, said a spokesman of the Ministry of Public Security Tuesday.

Since November 2004, public security departments at all levels have launched a "hawk" action against audio-visual piracy across the country. Currently, the ministry is working on 130 major cases including counterfeit products in different industries.

During the campaign, police have captured 12 production lines making video discs, adding the total sum of the captured production lines to 200.

Some of these cases have been passed down to procuratorates for public prosecution, the spokesman said.

Source: Xinhua