BEIJING - Authorities in China and the United States jointly shut down a chain of membership-based, Chinese-language pornographic websites targeting Chinese-speaking audiences in China, the US and other countries.

Wang Yong, the websites' primary operator, was arrested in the United States on June 23 by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), China's Ministry of Public Security said in a statement on Thursday.

In a simultaneous raid, Chinese police detained more than 10 people suspected of maintaining the websites in China, according to the ministry.

Wang left China from the southeast province of Fujian in January 2002 and has allegedly operated the illicit websites since at least 2007.

Wang eventually controlled 48 porn websites, making his the world's largest chain of pornographic websites as well as the chain serving the most Chinese-speaking users.

In China, 18 of Wang's websites offered child pornography, stimulating some criminals to commit more crimes, including rape, according to the ministry.

According to Chinese law, individuals convicted of producing, copying, publishing, selling or distributing pornography face 10 years to life in prison.

Chinese police kept a close eye on Wang's website chain, which had more than 10 million members, for a long time, arresting hundreds of the sites' administrators in China.

Nevertheless, police in China were unable to destroy the chain's source as its main servers and operators were based in the US.

In April 2010, Chinese authorities and the FBI began cooperating on cracking down on the website chain based on their mutual desire to curb the spread of child pornography.

Police forces in Beijing, Fujian and Anhui mobilized to investigate those suspected of running the illegal chain of websites in China, and the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) added these suspects to its list of most wanted criminals.

The crackdown on the chain of porn websites has been a successful and cooperative operation by Chinese and American police forces. The ministry will continue to strengthen its law enforcement cooperation with foreign countries and vigorously fight transnational illegal activities, including distributing pornography, gambling and computer hacking, according to the statement.