Take tickets out of reach of scalpers

"The goal is to make 150,000 yuan ($20,000) before Spring Festival."

Sound like a company's sales strategy? It is actually the goal a ring of train ticket scalpers set for themselves. During a raid on the scalpers' hideout in Anbao district, Shenzhen, last Thursday, the police found the schedule tacked to the wall.

As the authorities announced last week the earlier-than-usual commencement of the chunyun (the mass transport of passengers during the Spring Festival holiday season), scalpers intensified their efforts to speculate on the train tickets desperately needed by about a tenth of the nation's population, who are eager to go home during the lunar New Year holidays.