Police have arrested 17 suspects as part of a major dragnet aimed at those involved in child kidnapping-for-ransom in Shenzhen, Xinhuanet.com reports.

The latest arrests involved 51 cases that targeted parents of students in the city with kidnapping scams, local police said on February 8th.

Last October, a number of parents were threatened by messages requesting them to pay ransoms for their children who had not actually been kidnapped, which immediately aroused the attention of police.

Parents in the city have been growing increasingly worried after rumors of many further student kidnappings.

Local police also confirmed there had been three kidnapping cases per month since October, when two children were killed.

Following mounting worries among parents, police launched their sweep, which ran from Jan 11 to 26. Police in Guangdong, Henan, Hubei, Qinghai and Shaanxi provinces have also outlined major plans to prevent child kidnappings, which include meting out more serious penalties.
 
Two courts in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, sentenced one person to death and sent 24 others to jail in nine kidnapping for ransom cases, according to Xinhua News Agency.

In another case handed down by the Municipal Intermediate People's Court of Guangzhou, one of three defendants was given the death penalty, while jail terms of 10 and 12 years were given to the other two.

The family of the victim, who died at the hands of the defendants, will receive compensation of more than 150,000 yuan ($22,000).
 
In another case heard by the People's Court of Zengcheng, a suburban city of Guangzhou, prosecutors explained how defendants kidnapped and held captive an 11-year-old child for three days and nights.

The two defendants planned to blackmail the child's father. They were sentenced to 11 years and 8 years in jail and fined up to 5,000 yuan.