Mafia gangs widespread in southern China

Police in southern China have warned that activities by mafia-style criminal gangs are widespread, despite a recent campaign against crime.

The police chief of the southern Guangdong province Liang Guoju told the local legislature that out of some eight-thousand criminal gangs broken up over a five-month period this year, more than two-hundred had mafia-type structures.

The comments came as one of China's top law and order officials politburo member Luo Gan warned that public security at the grassroots level was being seriously undermined.

One local newspaper the Guangzhou Daily has reported that local villagers in several areas outside the provincial capital, Guangzhou, have organised their own private security forces, which refused to take orders from police.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service