Procurators across China have been ordered to step up efforts to finger government officials who protect crime gangs in their precincts, just two days after the country's police chief declared a war on gangs.

"We must do everything in our power to trace the protectors of crime gangs in the government. It doesn't matter who is involved -- we must leave no stone unturned in our investigations," said Zhang Geng, deputy procurator-general of China's Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP), on Saturday.

He said there was no room for compromise with gang sponsors. If "protecting umbrellas" are not dealt with, the war on criminal gangs will fail.

The head of China's police authority, Zhou Yongkang, on Thursday ordered a continued national crackdown on crime gangs, noting that two big events -- the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the Beijing Olympic Games -- are around the corner.

Police say they have broken up more than 3,000 gangs in the past 14 months.

Zhou, minister of public security, said gangs that organize protection rackets in villages are a priority for the crackdown.

Forty-seven officials have been accused of involvement in 33 protection racket cases from March to November 2006, according to the SPP.

In one of the most prominent cases, Xu Xiaogang, former vice director of the provincial public security department of east China's Jiangxi Province, was sentenced earlier this month to life imprisonment for graft and illegal possession of guns.

Xu received bribes -- including cash bribes of 850,000 yuan (US$109,000) and 10,000 U.S. dollars and two jade bracelets worth 82,000 yuan (US$10,500) -- from a local gang that operated a series of business scams, ran underground casinos and possessed a big stock of guns.

Xiong Xinxing, the head of the gang, was sentenced to death and executed on Jan. 11 this year.

(Xinhua News Agency April 29, 2007)