Hidden factory churns out most fake smokes in years

Seventeen people remain in detention awaiting charges, after a raid found the group operating Shanghai's largest-scale underground fake tobacco production site in recent years – a case involving some 3 million yuan ($476,000) worth of counterfeit products, Baoshan district police said Thursday.

After a months-long investigation into the case, which linked operations in Shanghai as far south as Guangdong Province, various district authorities cooperated to catch the workers churning out fake Chunghwa cigarettes at a hidden factory earlier this year.

In the raid, some 80 police officers confiscated some 1,408 cartons of the fake top brand Chinese smokes, 660 kilograms of low-quality tobacco and sheets of foil used to make the counterfeits at an old warehouse near Jiatang Highway in Jiading district. A series of secret gates and corridors were built in to the building to make the site appear as though it had been abandoned, with the intention of hiding the illegal activity taking place inside, said police.

Altogether, the operations are suspected of involving an investment of some 20 million yuan, though police have not yet determined how much money the group leaders made from selling the fake cigarettes.

Two of the suspected main bosses of the organization, a 53-year-old male and 46-year-old female, both Shanghai natives, are among those still in detention, said police.

The case remains under investigation, said police.