Chinese authorities have shut down 44,000 porn sites and arrested 868 people in a crackdown on the domestic sex industry ahead of the Beijing Olympics.

State media reported that 524 criminal cases are pending as part of the crackdown, and that 1,911 people were censured for "internet pornography activities".

The news came during a teleconference jointly organised by the Ministry of Public Security, the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and 11 other central departments.

A statement from the meeting said that "pornographic sources" were located in foreign countries and regions, while China was the "soil" for the growth of pornographic sites.

In one incident, a webcam site run from servers in Taiwan was closed and 33 people were arrested.

"This operation started up in the second half of 2006 and took in more than one million yuan [£71,000] in just three months," state media said.

The police have also investigated message boards and have deleted over 440,000 pornographic messages. The crackdown will continue until after the Olympics in September.