Guangzhou police yesterday announced that they have cracked a big cross-border prostitution ring, detaining five suspected leaders and 114 prostitutes.

But 10 further suspects in the case, including some Hong Kong residents, are still at large, said Xia Xiaolu, an official from the Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Public Security, yesterday.

The gang took women from the mainland into Hong Kong to work as prostitutes, Xia said, adding that because 10 suspects are still at large it is too early to say that the gang has been completely wiped out.

The gang was formerly based in Guangzhou's Huadu District and their involvement in the mainland-Hong Kong prostitution trade has been under investigation since 1998.

The prostitutes came from Hunan, Jiangxi and Sichuan provinces and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

They were caught using two-way travel documents to get to Hong Kong, where they worked as prostitutes and returned to the mainland when their forged travel documents expired.

To help fight cross-border crime, senior police officers from Guangdong Province, Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions held a conference from September 24 to 26 in the city of Foshan in the province to step up co-ordination in cracking down on cross-border and secret society-related crimes.

The officers exchanged views and information on fighting crimes in the three regions and expressed their resolve to get such crimes under control.

Zheng Shaodong, deputy director-general of the Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Public Security, said Guangdong will never be allowed to become a haven for overseas criminals.

Organized crime, secret gangs, drugs, commercial crimes, computer network crimes, forged documents and cross-border prostitution were the major topics of their discussion during the conference.

Despite their different social systems, the three parties all want to ensure stable social order to better serve economic growth, Zheng said.

And police from the three areas support and co-operate more with their counterparts in dealing with crimes involved into the three regions, Zheng added.

In a campaign titled "Dawn'' which ran from September 15 to 24, Guangdong police covered 13,161 criminal cases, detaining 7,490 suspects.

The suspects include 41 Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan residents. Eight of them are on police wanted lists in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao.

And 55 of the cases involve secret societies in the three areas.

A total of 272 guns and 3,478 grams of heroin were seized during the action.

In Zhuhai Special Economic Zone, police raided a underground drug production base on September 19, detaining 10 suspects, including 7 Taiwan residents.

A lot of production equipment and raw materials and 2.32 kilograms of manufactured drugs were also seized.

On September 13, Zhuhai police also raided a secret private bank, detaining five suspects from a criminal gang. The gang is being investigated in connection with the murder a Macao woman and the theft of 650,000 yuan (US$78,313) early this year.

Shenzhen police broke up a gang of car thieves, detaining six suspects, including three Hong Kong residents, and seizing 10 stolen cars, on September 13.

Dongguan police also broke up a robbery gang which used to ride motorcycles to rob woman pedestrians in the city on September 17.

A total of nine suspects were detained for further investigation.

Six gold necklaces, six ear rings, and a diamond ring were also seized.

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