Chinese police have detained or arrested more than 7,360 people and frozen almost 1 billion yuan (148 million U.S. dollars) in a nationwide crackdown on Internet gambling that began in January, the Ministry of Public Security announced Tuesday.

Police had dealt with 1,364 Internet gambling cases by the end of August, broken up more than 130 gangs connected with overseas gambling websites and detained about 320 suspects from Hong Kong, Macao, the Philippines and Malaysia, said a ministry official.

Another 57 organizations that provided technical or gross settlement services for online gambling activities had been disbanded, the official said.

The People's Bank of China and China Banking Regulatory Commission had helped in setting up systems to identify and freeze gambling funds, he said.