More than 300 people were detained after some attacked police in northern China during a raid on a pyramid-selling scam, injuring the top local police officer and destroying two police vans.

 

The attack happened about 5 PM on Sunday when policemen in Handan County, Hebei Province, launched a blitz in Hanba Village after a man reported his laptop and cell phone were stolen in the village, the Yanzhao Evening News reported today. He was reportedly lured to Hanba by members of the pyramid-selling group.

 

Eight policemen drove two vehicles to Hanba, but were stopped by hundreds of people waiting at the village gate, according to one of the policeman quoted in the report. He added that most were young men from outside the village.

 

"I could tell they were coming after us from their facial expressions and some of them were carrying wooden sticks or stones," the policeman told the newspaper.

 

The policemen called 110 for backup and decided to retreat. The mob followed the officers back to the police station.

 

At least 90 young men besieged the station, shouting and clapping hands while another group did the same on a nearby street, the report said, adding that those people were identified as members of some pyramid scam groups.

 

As more policemen returned to the station to control the scene, the mob became irritated. They threw bricks and tiles at the police station. The head of Handan's police bureau was hit in the face by a brick.

 

The confusion lasted about 20 minutes, the report said.

 

Some villagers in Hanba told the newspaper that the attack was both revenge and a warning to policemen over constant raids in the area that is plagued by many illegal pyramid scheme groups.

 

In response, police in Handan launched an all-night raid in cooperation with the industry and commerce supervision departments on Sunday.

 

They have detained more than 300 who were allegedly involved in the attack and illegal pyramid sales by early morning yesterday, the report said. Two reported senior leaders of pyramid scheme gangs were also detained.

 

About 200 people were repatriated to their home towns while the rest are now under investigation.

 

Hanba is regarded as "heaven for pyramid scam groups" for its convenient traffic networks, the report said.

 

Regular raids in the area were said to have failed to stop the illegal business as people involved in the sales outnumbered residents, the report said.

 

China launched a month-long campaign against pyramid schemes from July 16 after violent confrontations between illegal sales rings and law-enforcement officers.

 

Meanwhile, public security authorities together with other government agencies busted more than 17,000 illegal pyramid schemes worth 10 billion yuan. About 16,000 suspects involved were caught, Wu Heping, spokesman for the Ministry of Public Security, said today in Beijing.

 

Murders and robberies sparked by pyramid schemes hit more than 100 last year, which severely disturbed market order and public security and also endangered the social stability, Wu said.

 

Several government officers, including a deputy director of a local Industry and Commerce Administration, were seriously injured after they were assaulted by more than 140 members of a pyramid ring during a raid in Siping City, Jilin Province, on June 19.

China banned pyramid selling in 1998. Authorities said such schemes had become synonymous with cheating and fraud.

 

(Shanghai Daily August 14, 2007)