Shanghai police arrest 21 for selling replica firearms as crackdowns continue
Source:Global Times Published: 2012-12-25 23:39:08
Shanghai police arrested 21 people for selling imitation firearms, police announced Tuesday.
Police have taken more than 150 people into custody since the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau launched a campaign at the beginning of this year to crack down on the possession of guns, bullets and explosives, according to a press release from the public security bureau.
In June, police found a man surnamed Xu selling imitation guns and bullets on the Internet, primarily through online forums and chat services. After several months of investigation, police raided a warehouse where Xu and another man, surnamed Zhao, kept their products.
The campaign was one of several that Shanghai police have carried out this year in response to a call from the Ministry of Public Security to crack down on black markets for counterfeit products, illicit food processors, illegal gambling parlors and producers of substances that could pose a threat to public safety, police said.
In another campaign, Xuhui district police broke up a criminal ring suspected of manufacturing and selling more than 65 million yuan ($10.43 million) worth of counterfeit color contact lenses.
The police received an anonymous report in April that a company was selling the lenses in Shanghai. Investigators found that the company was operating warehouses and illegal plants in Jiangsu and Guangdong provinces.
The company produced the lenses at these plants with materials smuggled in from overseas. It then sold the knockoff lenses under the names of overseas brands.
Police arrested 36 people from Shanghai; Guangzhou, Guangdong Province; and Suzhou, Anhui Province with the help of police from other provinces and the local administration of industry and commerce.