Beijing - China's public security ministry plans to set up a new department to tackle organized crime amid an expected rise in criminal gangs partly caused by a slowdown in economic growth, state media said Monday.

Police forces nationwide are watching for signs of growing crime as unemployment rises with the ongoing global financial crisis, the official China Daily quoted a top organized crime officer as saying.

The fight against criminal gangs will be a "lasting task," the officer told the newspaper, which described him as a director of an organized crime unit who declined to give his name "for security reasons."

"In the foreseeable future, gangs will remain active as the country undergoes dramatic social and economic changes," the director was quoted as saying.

"Murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping, assault ... they dare do anything," he said. "Gang-related crimes have become a threat to our social stability and the economy."

As well as launching its new department, the ministry will urge the government to pass special legislation on organized crime, the newspaper said.

Police nationwide have investigated about 900 cases of organized crime since they launched a crackdown in 2006, solving some
70,000 crimes, while courts have sentenced more than 6,000 gang members over the same period.

The ministry reported a fall of about 4 per cent in serious crimes such as murder, robbery and assault as a result of the crackdown, the newspaper said.

In one of the biggest recent cases, a court in the north-eastern province of Liaoning sentenced three convicted gangsters to death on December 5.

The three gang leaders and 93 gang members who received prison sentences were found guilty of crimes including murder and illegal possession of firearms, it said.

The organized crime director said gangs were "becoming involved in more areas and industries," most often prostitution, racketeering, gambling, drug production and trafficking, construction, transportation and mining.

"To evade police crackdowns, gangs often seek the protection of government officials by every possible means," The China Daily quoted Wang Wei, a vice-minister of supervision, as saying.

Police and courts should give "no mercy to those officials, especially government leaders" if they were found to be protecting organized crime, Wang said. (dpa)