NINE suspects have been prosecuted and four others detained for running a prostitution racket through a website for four years, Xuhui District police said.

　　Seventeen prostitutes, mostly in their 20s, have been punished, police said.

　　The website, called “Shanghai Longfeng Site,” had 6.28 million registered users when police discovered it at the beginning of this year.

　　About 2.53 million posts were generated since the website was established in November 2011. The gang that ran the site is estimated to have made over 4 million yuan (US$630,000) from it.

　　Eleven suspects were nabbed in April, including the owners of the website, a man surnamed Chen and his wife, surnamed Zheng.

　　Two others, a man surnamed Teng and another surnamed Hu, who handled servers located in the US and Hong Kong, were brought back to Shanghai from Thailand. Police said the prostitutes usually offered their services in Hongmei, Yude and Nandan roads.