China confiscates nearly 15 mln illegal publications in 2015

China confiscated 14.88 million copies of publications that lacked publishing licenses or contained banned content last year, according to official figures.

These publications were involved in 7,213 cases across the country, and authorities received more than 100,000 tip-offs from the public on such misconduct, said the National Anti-Pornography and Anti-Illegal Publications Office in a statement Thursday.

"In 2015, we achieved prominent results in securing a sound cultural environment on and off the Internet and protecting the healthy growth of minors," said the statement, which also included details on 10 major cases.

In one, a ring headed by a suspect surnamed Liu allegedly sold more than 260,000 pornographic DVDs in east China's Shandong and Jiangsu since 2013.

So far, police have arrested 22 suspects and the case, with an estimated worth of 6 million yuan (910,000 U.S. dollars).

Other cases involved printing and spreading publications without official licenses, or making and selling books, magazines or disks that contained lewd, superstitious or violence or terror-related content.

One case saw a trio given jail time of five years, six months and eight years, six months for founding an unlicensed magazine that published untruthful articles to lure investment. Endi