Chinese police have arrested 4,669 people for scalping train tickets ahead of the Spring Festival, or the Chinese New Year, which falls on Feb. 14, the Ministry of Public Security said Monday.

Police target scalpers and ticket selling as spring festival approaches.[File photo]

Since Jan. 21 when the crackdown was launched, police have confiscated more than 20,000 tickets, the ministry said.

In Guangdong, a pilot province for the real-name train ticket selling system, police captured 837 illegal ticket vendors and confiscated more than 2,500 scalped tickets.

The new system was designed to prevent ticket scalping with passengers required to show ID when booking their ticket. It was initially adopted for trains running between Guangdong and the inland provinces of Hunan, Sichuan and Guizhou and Chongqing Municipality, the home provinces of millions of Guangdong's migrant workers who rush home for the Spring Festival holiday every year.

Police with the Ministry of Railways (MOR) public security department are also checking the Internet for scalpers touting tickets.

In the past week, the MOR police cracked 257 cases of illegal ticket dealing on the Internet and arrested 286 scalpers.

The MOR estimates 210 million passengers will travel during the 40-day rush period beginning Jan. 30, up 9.5 percent from a year earlier.

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