Society

Police break up invoice forgery ring in Yancheng

By Wu Yiyao (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-07-05 08:07

SHANGHAI - A 25-member invoice-counterfeiting ring capable of processing a greater variety of receipts than a county-level tax office has been broken up by police in Yancheng, Jiangsu province.

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More than 50 fake seals and about 200,000 forged invoices worth a total of 2 billion yuan ($295.4 million) were confiscated in the bust, the Yangtse Evening News reported on Sunday.

In recent years, tax bureaus nationwide have been discovering fake and fraudulent invoices, which are often used for reimbursements in companies and government offices.

Early this year, Yancheng police received three tip-offs about fake invoices distributed by a man known as "the underground tax bureau director". The information pointed police to a man surnamed Su.

But the early stages of surveillance did not turn up evidence that Su was involved in forgery. Law enforcement officers found he followed a strict daily routine, in which he got up at 8 am, ate breakfast in a restaurant, napped, visited the spa and ate dinner in restaurants. He spent the rest of the day playing poker and mahjong, before returning home.

However, police knew Su owned an expensive house and a luxury car, but had no job or legitimate source of income source. So they dispatched a team of five investigators to monitor Su.

Law enforcement official learned that Su had contact with a young man nicknamed Mazai. He has been seen passing an envelop to another man in a black car, who turned out to be a businessman buying fake invoices.

Police followed Mazai by greasing his motorcycle tires with slime while he was watching a chess game in the street and were led back to Mazai's suburban residence.

Officers arrested Su and Mazai, who turned out to be Su's subordinate, on April 20. They also arrested up to 25 others, the newspaper reported.

In Mazai's home, police discovered computers, printers, the fake seals of various tax sectors and enterprises, and up to 200,000 forged invoices with a face value of 2 billion yuan. Five stations for producing and storing fake invoices were also discovered in the residence.

The case was recently handed over to Yancheng's procuratorate.