NW China police smash 124m yuan fake cigarette ring

XI'AN - Police in Northwest China's Shaanxi province have caught 20 suspects accused of making and selling counterfeit cigarettes worth 124 million yuan ($19 million).

Xunyang county said on Tuesday that police received a tip-off at the end of 2016 that a resident had bought a large amount of fake cigarettes and sold them for profit.

Police initially found that the person had been buying the cigarettes through Wechat, a popular social media platform.

The investigation team then discovered that behind the case there was a gang, based in Zhangzhou city of Fujian province, that had been using a dozen Wechat accounts. Their agents were scattered around the country, and a total of 124 million yuan was involved.

In April 2018, Xunyang police caught seven people in Fujian, and eight others elsewhere. Police destroyed a fake cigarette warehouse in Nantong city, Jiangsu province, seized some 700,000 cigarettes and caught five more people.

Further investigation is ongoing.