Police have cracked a large number of serious crimes, many involved in the manufacture of fake or poisonous food and medicines, thanks to a nationwide blitz in the first seven months of this year.

Police solved 15,287 serious criminal cases, including murder, explosion, poisoning, kidnapping, rape, robbery and arson, said an official from the Ministry of Public Security.

"The number of solved cases is 21.65 percent higher than during the same period last year," said the official from the ministry's Criminal Investigation Bureau. "Among the cases, more than 81 cent of those committed between January and July have been uncovered."

For example, police in the city of Datong, in north China's Shanxi Province, arrested murder suspect Feng Jianbo during a night patrol on June 26.

After questioning, Feng confessed that, with the help of another accomplice Wang Jincheng, they had murdered three taxi drivers during three robberies in Beijing.

The ministry also organized a series of anti-counterfeiting campaigns in Hebei, Henan, Hunan, Hainan provinces and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

On July 30, suspect Zhang Jiandong and three accomplices who had produced fake milk powder were transferred to a local procuratorate department for prosecution by police in the city of Tangshan, Hebei Province.

Police's investigations showed that Zhang's company had sold 230 tons of inferior milk powder nationwide, which had earned 2.55 million yuan (US$307,000) since July 2003.

Modern technology, such as the Internet and DNA testing, is playing an increasingly important role in catching suspects, public security experts said.

Ministry statistics indicated that 5,386 escaped criminals, including nine class A and 24 class B suspects on the ministry's wanted list, or 75.78 percent more than the previous year, were caught with the help of the Internet.

And more than 3,300 long-standing homicide cases were also cracked, officials said.

Recently, police in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Shaanxi Province joined forces to solve a case and arrested the suspects, who killed three Japanese tourists in Shaanxi's capital city of Xi'an 11 years ago.

(China Daily August 26, 2004)