WASHINGTON: The US on Wednesday announced indictments against a slew of alleged Chinese hackers, sanctioned a Chinese tech company and offered a $10 million bounty over what Washington called a years-long spy campaign that stole information from victims across America and around the world.

Federal officials accused 10 people of collaborating to steal data from their targets. Eight of the suspects worked for a company known as Anxun Information Technology, better known as i-Soon, and two worked for the Chinese ministry of public security.

An indictment unsealed on Wednesday described i-Soon as `a key player in the PRC`s hacker-for-hire ecosystem`.

Officials said the targets included the US Defence Intelligence Agency, the Department of Commerce, the foreign ministries of Taiwan, South Korea, India, and Indonesia, news organisations critical of China and the New York State Assembly.

Hackers also allegedly hit a variety of religious figures and groups, including an unidentified `large religious organisation in the United States`, according to the indictment and a separate statement issued by the Manhattan district attorney`s office.

The indictment says i-Soon charged Chinese intelligence agencies the equivalent of about $10,000 to $75,000 for each email inbox it successfully hacked, with additional payments for analysing them.-Reuters