China sees drop in public reports of criminal cases: police

BEIJING, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- Thanks to Chinese police campaigns to crack down on crimes and other violations, the number of calls to the police nationwide reporting suspected criminal cases was significantly lower this summer than during summer last year, according to China's Ministry of Public Security on Tuesday.

The ministry launched several rounds of special campaigns against all kinds of crimes and minor offenses nationwide between June 25 and Sept. 30, with the result that reported crimes during the period were 13.8 percent lower than in the same period of 2022, said Qiu Baoli, director of the ministry's bureau of public security administration, at a press conference.

More than 566,000 criminal cases and over 2 million cases of minor offenses were solved during the period, with a total of 975,000 suspects captured in the campaign, according to Qiu.

The police launched special campaigns targeting telecom and online fraud. As a result, since August, the number of relevant cases and related property losses dropped by 24 percent and 20.5 percent, respectively, on a year-on-year basis, said Wang Zhizhong, vice minister of public security.

The police authority also worked with other relevant departments on the anti-fraud efforts, sending over 1 billion early-warning text messages, instructions and reminders this year, Wang said.

In the first nine months this year, police forces dealt with 114,000 cases of economic offenses and over 4,600 smuggling crime cases, and solved 28,000 cases of IPR infringement and counterfeiting, according to documents issued at the press conference.