BEIJING - China's various anti-illegal publication departments dealt with 184 cases involving illegal newspaper and magazines this year, according to the National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications.

The office said Sunday in a statement that it joined hands with General Administration of Press and Publication to confiscate some five million copies of illegal papers and magazines in 2012 while "a bunch of cases" concerning phony journalists and illegally established reporting offices were punished.

In one high-profile case, three people were sentenced to jail terms of up to five years in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region for falsely claiming to be journalists and using untrue news stories to blackmail local mine owners.

According to the local anti-illegal publication office, the paper one of them claimed to belong to was an illegal publication, while the rest two, who claimed to be reporters for online media and a legal paper group, respectively, did not have official press cards.

The three are said to have been each paid about 240,000 yuan ($38,156) for numerous blackmailing activities.

According to Sunday's statement, more than 41 million illegal publications, 33 million pirated publications and 884,000 ones with lewd content were seized in the country this year.