Beijing police are increasingly tapping online resources to help them fight prostitution, with eight suspects detained in the latest crackdown, the Beijing Public Security Bureau said on Thursday.
The suspects include a woman from the Inner Mongolia autonomous region. Four venues used for the illegal activities have also been uncovered, the bureau said.
Crackdowns on prostitution in the capital in the past few years have yielded promising results but an increasing number of perpetrators have gone online to carry out their illegal activities, it said.
At the end of 2014, the police in Beijing's Shijingshan district discovered netizens of online forums discussing information related to prostitution, including details such as venues, services, payment and prostitutes' contacts.
The police used these leads to track the illegal activities. The prostitutes would usually chat with their targeted clients first before confirming their identities and meeting them in person, the bureau said.
More prostitutes are becoming cautious about such online transactions, making it more difficult to track the violators, it said.
