CHINA blocked access to 18,401 illegal Websites during a nationwide campaign against online pornography that started in April, an industry newspaper reported today.

A total of 9,593 unregistered Websites were shut down while 8,808 Websites were closed for disseminating pornographic, illicit or fraudulent pictures and information on the Internet, said Miao Wei, deputy general manager of China Telecom, the country's biggest telecommunication carrier, which was involved in the campaign.

The campaign was launched by the Ministry of Public Security and nine other departments on April 12, the Communication and Information News said.

The campaign also required major Chinese portals, including sina.com, sohu.com, 163.com and qq.com, to conduct self-examinations and shut down problematic channels.

China now has almost 162 million Internet users, and the figure is growing by eight percent a year, according to the report.

It also added that the number of Chinese-language pornographic Websites was estimated at 500,000 around the world, while there are around two million English porn sites, the report said.

Online fraud is also becoming rampant, the report noted.

Shangdong police last month cracked China's biggest online pyramid sales scam, which involved 170,000 people and 1.36 billion yuan (US$180 million).

On August 30, the Ministry of Information Industry also ordered main search engines, including Baidu, Google, Yahoo, Zhongsou, Sina and Sogou, to remove "illegal and unhealthy information" from their search results.