China: Police issue 'most wanted' playing cards

Full jailhouse: The cards have a police hotline number printed on the back

Police in southern China have handed out 15,000 decks of playing cards which are plastered with photos of local fugitives.

Officers in Binyang county, near the city of Nanning, are hoping it will help the public to recognise the 248 people featured, the Xinhua news agency reports. All of them are wanted by the authorities on suspicion of committing cyber crimes.

Five different decks have been printed, with photos on one side along with the suspect's national ID number, address and why they are wanted by the police, one officer tells Xinhua. On the reverse are details of a hotline for people to call with any information. There's a reward of at least 2,000 yuan ($304; £211) if a tip-off leads to an arrest, the police announced.

Most Chinese social media users think it's a good idea, and many point out that it could be used for missing persons cases, too. "Get abducted children on a few packs!" one person writes on the Sina Weibo microblogging site. But others are baffled by the police force's choice of playing cards, given that gambling is illegal in China. One user asks if police are "encouraging people to gamble", and another declares: "This type of card I don't dare to play with!"

"Most wanted" playing cards were perhaps most famously used by the US military during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, to help soldiers identify officials from Saddam Hussein's regime.

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