On Wednesday the person behind China's largest pornographic
website was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Judges at the Taiyuan Intermediate People's Court handed down
the sentence to Chen Hui and ordered the confiscation of 100,000
yuan (US$12,500). Another eight people involved in the website were
jailed for terms ranging from 13 months to ten years.
All nine were convicted of profiting from pornographic
dissemination. Apart from one who's over 50 the average age of the
other eight criminals is 23. Chen, 28, and his accomplices started
the Qingseliuyuetian (pornographic summer) website in 2004 and
opened a further three porn websites. They attracted more than
600,000 users.
A police source said it was difficult to estimate the exact
profits involved in the website as most of the money had been spent
or saved in foreign bank accounts. The police found about 200,000
yuan (US$25,000) in the Chinese bank accounts of the nine.
A member of the public complained to city police on June 21 last
year that a hospital website had been changed and become the
homepage for pornographic material.
Police questioned the administrator of the website, Wang
Jianfei, who allegedly admitted he was responsible for the
"Qingseliuyuetian" Taiyuan section. Three months later police in
the provinces of Fujian, Guangdong, Jilin, Liaoning, Anhui and Hubei arrested Chen and others involved.
?
All the servers of "China's largest adult community" were based
overseas and Chen regularly changed the website's domain name, the
servers and Internet provider address, police said.
At first the four websites accepted about 200,000 registered
members free of charge but demanded 199 to 266 yuan (US$25-33) in
registration fees from people who joined later. Some paid more for
life membership. According to police a "top-level VIP membership"
sold at 3,999 yuan (US$500). Commercial space on the website sold
for 1,000 to 3,000 yuan (US$125 to 375) per month.
On October 3 last year when the website was closed down the
registered members exceeded 600,000 in China. The website contained
more than nine million pornographic images and articles and it had
received more than 11 million hits.
(Xinhua News Agency November 23, 2006)