HANGZHOU, Dec. 19 -- Two Chinese hackers, previously imprisoned for creating a notorious computer virus, stood trial again on Thursday for allegedly running online gambling games.

A court in Lishui City, east China's Zhejiang Province, heard the case against 26 people including Zhang Shun and Li Jun, creators of "joss-stick burning panda" that damaged millions of computers in 2006 and 2007.

Prosecutors said the defendants, all from an online game company, operated several card games that allowed players to gamble using virtual chips.

More than 2,200 people joined in and a total of 76 million yuan (12.4 mln U.S. dollars) was staked. The company raked in 8 million yuan by selling the chips.

Li caught the attention in 2010 when he made a cash donation to a research base for giant pandas as an act of remorse for making the virus, which he named after the endangered bears.

The virus, which changed icons on desktops into cartoon pandas holding three burning joss-sticks and wreaked havoc by deleting files, damaging programs and stealing gaming and messanger accounts.