Police intend to establish a special task force to investigate and squelch the online promotion of prostitution, which has been expanding through the use of social media in the Pearl River Delta cities in Guangdong province.

"After great efforts fighting prostitution in local entertainment venues in the past months, now many prostitution organizers and operators publish their prostitution advertisements via QQ chat rooms, WeChat, mobile phone message texts and other instant messaging services," said Peng Hui, deputy director general of Guangdong provincial department of public security.

The new digital methods of luring customers in the prosperous province has "created many difficulties for police fighting the crime", Peng told a news conference in Guangzhou, the provincial capital, on Thursday. "Therefore, effective and concrete measures should soon be taken to fight against the crime."

Every city in the southern province also should set up a special online task force to expand both open and secret investigations against prostitution and gambling, Peng said.

"Meanwhile police should further expand with their cooperation with banks, telecommunication and related departments and organizations in the fight against the online prostitution and gambling events, which have threatened local residents’ normal lives," he said.

Peng said a special campaign, dubbed "Winter, including the traditional Chinese lunar new year holiday, is usually the peak period for online prostitution and gambling events in Guangdong province, which borders Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions," Peng said.

He urged residents to tip police to such illegal activities and promised to award the tipsters who provide evidence that enables police to crack down on those activities.

Chen Yingqi, a Guangzhou white collar worker, said police should introduce more effective measures in the coming months. "The online prostitution advertisements have become rampant," Chen said.

In the first 11 months this year, police across Guangdong reported detaining 119,710 suspects and cracking 53,529 cases involving prostitution and gambling.

Shenzhen police detained 103 suspects after busting a gang that organized prostitution via the Internet in March. The suspects come from 28 provinces, municipalities and regions across the mainland. Police in Zhongshan said they detained 24 suspects after cracking a similar case in May.