China Establishes Reporting Center to Net Economic Criminals 　　The Ministry of Public Security announced on January 29 that a center for reporting economic crimes has been established, and people who report these crimes will be rewarded. 　　Hu Anfu, director of the ministry's bureau on economic crime, pointed out that "rampant economic crime has caused great losses for the people and the state, and is endangering the country's economic security and social stability." 　　He pledged that the center will keep secret the identity of those making reports as well as the report's contents, and people who provide clues for solving major cases will be highly rewarded. 　　Hu said that the establishment of this bureau in September last year indicates that China's police are beginning to combat these kinds of criminals in a professional way. 　　The director said that his bureau deals primarily with criminal activities in finance and taxation, as well as those involving intellectual property rights, smuggling, and counterfeiting. 　　To date, the bureau has cracked more than 200 foreign currency defaulting cases and successfully dealt with some 7,000 fake customs invoices involving more than four billion U.S. dollars and four billion Hong Kong dollars, and has detained over 400 criminal suspects. 　　The bureau has also cracked more than 800 smuggling cases involving some 3.7 billion yuan in goods. More than 700 criminal suspects were detained and over 40 criminal rings were smashed, the director said. 　　"This year the bureau will give priority to a crackdown on the defaulting of foreign currencies, smuggling cases, tax-evasion cases, and the pursuit of criminals at large," the director said. 　　The ministry also called for the establishment of economic investigation teams at the provincial and city level before June 30, saying that a professional police team is crucial to the healthy development of China's economy. HomeNews 1999-01-30 Page1 Full Story in Chinese