Arrested for running match-making scam

A group of people were arrested by Chinese police for running a match-making scam involving tricking lonely men looking for wives into giving expensive gifts and money, in Beijing, yesterday.

China will have 30 million more men of marriageable age than women by 2020, making it difficult for them to find wives, a report by the State Population and Family Planning Commission warned, as traditional preference for boys, in a country with a one-child policy, is the root of the problem.

Meanwhile, Chinese courts have convicted nearly 13,000 members of organised crime gangs since 2006, state media said yesterday as Beijing battles a scourge that has resurfaced in 30 years of economic opening.

Quoting a senior official with China's highest court, Xinhua news agency said the 12,796 convictions were handed down between the start of 2006 through July of this year amid a broad crackdown on organised crime.

It also quoted Liao Jinrong, deputy director of the criminal investigation bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, as saying police had detained more than 89,000 people suspected of organised crime during the campaign.