Twelve people in China have been sentenced to jail terms ranging from 11 months to 11 and a half years after being convicted of running 13 porn websites and spreading obscene articles.

The 12, from different provinces and cities, including Jiangsu, Beijing, Liaoning and Hubei, made 710,000 yuan (104,412 U.S. dollars) in profits from the dissemination of pornography, a court in Sihong County in eastern Jiangsu Province has heard.

Beijing resident Shen Qiang, the founder of the 13 porn websites, was jailed for 11 and a half years, the court ruled.

In April last year, police in Sihong found a local person was participating in the operation of a porn website and traced the evidence to Shen, said Shi Jiman, a police officer in charge of the case, Thursday.

Police later found and detained the other 10 suspects, who were all working for Shen in the northeastern Liaoning Province and the central Hubei Province, he said.

Shen had rented 14 servers from the United States to support the operation of the websites and hired more than 300 people as website administrators. Those websites had registered a total of 10 million members, including 10,000 paying members, he said.