CHONGQING: A total of 348 people have been convicted for their involvement in mafia-style gangs since police started cracking down on organized crime last June.

The southwest municipality's gang-crushing operation had shocked the nation as many top officials from the city's police departments, courts and procuratorates were arrested and convicted of accepting bribes from gangs to shield them from the law.

According to the annual report of the president of Chongqing people's high court, the number of convictions in 2009 was up 208 percent annually.