Chinese Ministry of Public Security said Monday that the nation's police authorities had shut down 500 underground banks since 2002 in its battle against money laundering.

Ten crack-down campaigns have be waged since 2002 when the ministry set up a division dedicated to anti-money laundering, in which over 100 cases involving more than 200 billion yuan (US$30 billion) have been handled, the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry has trained more than 400 police officers specialized in handling money laundering cases over the past eight years, said the statement.

In order to promote international cooperation, China joined the Moscow-based Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism as a founding member state inn October 2004.

In June, 2007, China joined another international anti-money laundering organization, the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force on Anti-Money Laundering.

(Xinhua News Agency November 23, 2010)