BEIJING, June 1 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese police cracked more than 250 cross-national or cross-regional serial murder cases by May 20 this year, seizing over 130 suspects, according to the Ministry of Public Security Tuesday.

"The timely solving of murder cases has helped intimidate criminals and maintain social stability," said Zhang Xinfeng, assistant minister of public security.

Since Feb. 17 this year, the ministry has carried out a nationwide campaign targeting murder, which has gained major achievements as noted by the assistant minister.

"Public security departments of various levels have solved a batch of murder, bombing, poisoning, arson, robbery and abducting cases, including those pending for years, and seized many dangerous criminals," Zhang said.

According to the statistics, from January to April, Chinese police cracked 1,461 murder cases left pending since 2000, and seized 2,177 fugitives, including Ma Jiajue, who killed four schoolmates in Yunnan University, and Li Chunyong, who shot dead a policeman and was at large for 10 years.

Since the campaign, major violent crimes have decreased evidently and the public have felt safer, Zhang said.

According to him, the ministry has recently allocated 3 million yuan (362,760 US dollars) to reward policemen making eminent contributions to the crackdown. But no details about the bonus distribution were revealed.