Police have arrested a man in Zhongxian, Chongqing, who allegedly posed as a reporter and blackmailed government officials and companies by threatening to publish negative stories about them online.

Zhongxian resident Deng Dazhong, 39, is said to have fabricated negative reports about local government officials and companies, posting them on websites and then blackmailing the related parties for 141,000 yuan ($21,147) over the past two years, the Chongqing Times reported yesterday.

Deng, who only received a primary school education, paid 20,000 yuan ($2,999) in 2009 to obtain fake credentials for Xinzaobao, a newspaper based in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Local police arrested Deng on November 17.

Li Bingren, director of the information department at the Chongqing Press and Publication Bureau, said he had received cases of fake reporters from the Xinzaobao newspaper on several occasions.

"Those fake reporters destroy the image of the media. We fully support the police crackdown, in the hope of maintaining order in the media circle," said Li.

The Xinzaobao newspaper had sent a statement to the Chongqing Press and Publication Bureau in April, condemning the establishment of an online newspaper in the paper's name. The paper has never had an online version or any branch offices outside Xinjiang.