Police from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan busted about 130 telephone-fraud gangs and captured nearly 2,000 suspects between June last year and August this year, after a cross-Strait cooperation agreement on crime took effect in June last year, a mainland official said Wednesday.

The two police forces cracked a large telephone-fraud ring and detained 500 suspects on August 25, said Fan Liqing, a spokeswoman for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council.

The crackdown is part of broadening cooperation between police across the Taiwan Strait under the Cross-Strait Agreement on Joint Crime Crackdown and Mutual Judicial Assistance.

Since the agreement took effect, the two sides have cooperated in many areas and achieved remarkable results, Fan said.

Mainland public security departments have transferred 68 suspects on Taiwan's wanted list to Taiwan since the agreement took effect, she said.

The mainland also transferred a convicted criminal, surnamed Feng, to Taiwan, a breakthrough in the transfer of convicted criminals between the two sides, according to Fan.

Thanks to cross-Strait judicial cooperation, mainland and Taiwan law enforcement authorities have exchanged legal papers and evidence in 6,000 cases, she said.

"With continuing efforts from both sides, we believe the agreement will play an important role in safeguarding the well-being of the compatriots from boths sides of the Taiwan Strait," she said.

The agreement was signed by the mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits and Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation in April last year at a meeting in Nanjing.

(Xinhua News Agency September 15, 2010)