The founder of a China’s biggest porn Web site was sentenced to life in prison by a Chinese Court, the state media reported.
Eight others involved in the case also received jail time.
Chen Hui, 28, was also ordered to pay 100,000 yuan or $12,500 by the Taiyan Intermediate People’s Court, according to the Xinhua news agency. The others received jail terms of between 13 months and 10 years.
Chen reportedly founded the “Pornographic Summer” Web site and later started three more porn sites where he charged registration fees of $25 and $33 to an estimated 600,000 users.
The news agency said it was unclear how much money Chen made, saying most of the cash was stashed away in foreign banks or spent.
Chen had kept one step ahead of authorities who tried to close his site by simply changing the domain name and server.
China, despite looser controls on pornography, has developed a proverbial army of cyber police who regularly patrol cyberspace for porn sites operated in the country.
