ULAN BATOR, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia recorded a total of 22,497 cases of crime in the first seven months of 2018, up 42.2 percent over the same period in 2017, according to the official statistics released on Tuesday.

The significant increase was directly related to rises in fraud by 2.3 times, robbery by 3.0 times and theft by 54 percent, statistics released by the National Statistics Office showed.

But the number of injuries and deaths due to crimes decreased compared to the same period last year.

Namely, a total of 5,305 people were injured (down 10.3 percent) and 596 deaths (down 13.9 percent) were recorded due to crimes, according to the statistics.

Reported crime rate per 10,000 people aged 18 or older was 110 in the first seven months of this year, an increase of 39.2 percent year-on-year, the data showed.