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Shandong cracks down on pyramid schemes
By Zhao Ruixue (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-04-08 16:32

To fight against pyramid selling, Shandong has put great efforts on building several “Zero Pyramid-selling Areas” since 2006. So far 13,000 residential areas have benefited from the campaign.

“Shandong aims for 90 percent of its communities or villages to become Zero Pyramid-selling Areas by 2010,” Wang Tianren, deputy director of Shandong Provincial Bureau of Industry and Commerce, said at a news conference on April 8.

The province’s bureaus of industry and commerce uncovered 30 pyramid selling cases last year, involving 31,000 people and worth a total 16.97 million yuan. The province’s security sectors solved 338 such cases involving 950 million yuan, prosecuting 248 people.

Efforts on cracking down on pyramid schemes have been further strengthened by a joint conference composed of 19 departments including the province’s comprehensive management office, bureaus of industry and commerce and security sectors.

China Daily Shandong Bureau