BEIJING - Chinese authorities have arrested or detained nearly a dozen people in recent weeks for allegedly circulating explicit photos of Vancouver-born actor and singer Edison Chen and several female partners, a state news agency reported Friday.

Police detained one man on Friday in the eastern province of Zhejiang for posting the photos on the Internet, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Identified only by his surname, Yu was apprehended at his home in Zhoushan city, where authorities found more than 260 downloaded photos on his computer.

Last week, 10 people who allegedly produced, sold or bought computer discs of the photos were arrested in the southern city of Shenzhen after police confiscated about 250 discs and six computers used to produce the discs.

Police said it is illegal for people to disseminate or post the photos, even if they do not intend to make a profit, Xinhua said.

On Thursday, Chen admitted taking the photos showing him and several women - including singer Gillian Chung and actress Cecilia Cheung - performing sexual acts.

He publicly apologized for the scandal, but said the photos were private and were never intended to be shown to anyone. He said the photos were stolen and distributed without his approval.

Chen was born in Vancouver and attended secondary school in Richmond, B.C., before moving to Hong Kong where he was discovered in 1999 and asked to do a commercial. He recently appeared alongside Sarah Michelle Gellar in "The Grudge 2".

Hong Kong police have already arrested several people on suspicion of violating local laws governing obscene material in connection with the photos, including a man accused of downloading the photos from a computer brought to a shop for repairs and publishing them on the Internet.

The scandal has dominated headlines in Hong Kong for weeks.

Earlier this week, China's top Internet search engine, Baidu.com, was censured by a government-sponsored web watchdog for allegedly helping spread sexually explicit photos.