Sixteen foreign suspects and two local residents were detained in three cities in Guangdong province after police busted a triad-related gang.

A senior police officer said on Tuesday that police in Guangzhou cooperated over the detentions with their counterparts in Foshan and Dongguan.

"The Mafia-like criminal gang was investigated and found to have been involved with robbery, racketeering, ... drugs and related crimes since being established in 2009," said Xie Zheyuan, deputy director of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau.

Xie did not say where the foreign suspects come from.

"Many drugs, axes, knives and other criminal tools were seized after the gang was busted. It had more than 20 members at the peak of its activities," Xie said at a news conference on Tuesday.

The gang, which used to be active in Guangdong, which borders the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, was investigated for suspected use of violence in demanding debt payments, Xie said.

"Its victims were mainly foreign business representatives in Guangdong," he said, adding that the two domestic suspects are a driver and a man who has still to be identified.

Eleven foreign suspects and two Chinese were detained in operations launched simultaneously in Guangzhou, Foshan and Dongguan early on Feb 6, while the other five foreign suspects were detained in Guangzhou and Dongguan on Feb 16.

The operations followed several months of investigations and involved more than 300 officers.

Task forces were formed in the three cities to investigate the foreign triad gang when a businessman sought police help after being robbed late last year.

Xie said the gang had a leader, five key members and others and was run under a strict managerial system.

The leader had a full-time person who looked after the gang's financial affairs, while the key members were responsible for implementing the leader's instructions.

Peng Peng, a researcher at the Guangzhou Academy of Social Sciences, said the authorities should further improve supervision of the growing number of foreigners arriving in Guangdong for business, study, work and travel.

According to the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau, police in the city have cracked 6,400 criminal cases and detained more than 5,000 suspects since the start of this year.

More than 680 kg of drugs and fake bank notes with a face value of more than 4.7 million yuan ($758,064) were seized after the cases were cracked.

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