Police in Tibet have nabbed 70 alleged gang members on charges including involvement in organized crime, gambling, usury, public fighting and drug trafficking.

The police in Xigaze, a city in western Tibet, seized steel pipes, hacking knives, drugs, pornographic video disks and 100,000 yuan for gambling during the crackdown on the gang.

The police also seized IOUs and five account books for usury involving more than 3 million yuan.

Ringleader Li Nianbing and gang members began the illegal practices since the beginning of this year and became a public security concern in Xigaze, according to the police.

The police nabbed 64 alleged gang members in Xigaze within half an hour on July 17. Hours later, runaway Li Nianbing was detained on a highway 115 kilometers away from Xigaze and the other five detained in a county hotel.

China has stepped up the crackdown on organized crimes this year.

Prosecutors in Loudi, Hunan Province, charged 73 people with 19 crimes, including murder, alleging they were all members of an organized crime gang last month.

Also in June, police in north China's Hebei Province arrested 37 alleged gang members led by Yang Shukuan in Tangshan City, while a court in Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei, sentenced 14 gang members to death for murder and other violent crimes while another four received life imprisonment.

China's law enforcement agencies have cracked 125 cases and prosecuted 246 suspects involved in organized crime from the beginning of 2006 to March this year, government statistics showed.

(Xinhua News Agency July 21, 2007)