The economy is booming in China, and so is economic crime. The term "economic crime" is a catchall covering everything from bribery and fraud to pyramid selling, money laundering and illicit stock market deals.

According to State Administration of Industry and Commerce, Chinese authorities tackled some 8,233 commercial bribery cases in 2006, triple the number a year previously. The cases involved 1.46 billion yuan, up 60 percent year on year.

Investigators dealt with food safety cases, fake advertising for medical treatment, cosmetics, and health food, branding issues, pyramid selling and commercial bribery.

Official statistics show that authorities solved 2.28 million cases of economic wrongdoing in 2006 in the industrial and commercial sector, up 33 percent on 2005, and recovered 38.6 billion yuan (4.83 billion U.S. dollars).

"China has seen an increasing number of economic crimes in recent years, especially in fields such as intellectual property infringement and money laundering," said Zheng Shandong, assistant minister of public security. "These crimes distort market competition and damage the economy".

Source: Xinhua