Police in central China's Hubei Province have seized the country's biggest hacker training website and arrested three suspects, the local public security department said.

The three, who ran the Black Hawk Safety Net, were suspected of offering online hacker tools, a crime that was newly listed in China's Criminal Law last year.

Police have also frozen more than 1.7 million yuan ($250,000) in assets and confiscated nine web servers, five computers and a Honda Accord.

The Black Hawk Safety Net, established in 2005 and headquartered in Xuchang of the central Henan Province, had recruited more than 12,000 VIP members and collected 7 million yuan in membership fees.

At least 170,000 others registered for free membership, said an official in charge of network safety at the Hubei provincial public security department.

Police said the net openly disseminated hacker tools in its online forums and offered different versions of trojan software for its members to download.

Police found clues leading to the net in April 2009, when three people who were caught for disseminating virus and disrupting Internet services in Macheng City admitted they were members of the Black Haw Safety Net.

At least 50 police officers were mobilized to investigate the case in the provinces of Zhejiang, Anhui and Henan.

The hacker industry in China caused losses of 7.6 billion yuan last year, according to a report released by the National Computer Network Emergency Response Coordination Center of China.

(Xinhua News Agency February 8, 2010)