Society

Police bust ring for fake travel invoices

By Wu Yiyao (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-09-03 09:08

SHANGHAI - An invoice-counterfeiting ring which has sold more than 10 million fake invoices in the past two years was broken up by Shanghai police in August.

The ring specialized in printing and selling fake e-ticket invoices for air transport.

It is the most serious case of its kind discovered in a 100-day campaign by Shanghai police against fake invoices, said Yang Lieyi, deputy director of the economic crimes investigation team with the Shanghai public security bureau.

Han Jinglue, the mastermind of the ring, ran a private printing company in Tianjin, which undertook normal printing business during the day and printed fake invoices at night, according to Wang Wei, director of the fifth squad under the economic crimes investigation team.

The company was able to print as many as 500,000 fake invoices every night in peak seasons.

"The demand for fake invoices is rising, which lures fakers to expand their illegal business," said Yang.

Unauthorized ticket agents and travel agencies are frequent buyers of fake e-ticket invoices.

The fake invoices show a higher ticket price than the real price, and illegitimate ticket agents can earn higher than standard commissions.

Some frequent travelers also buy fake invoices for reimbursement, according to Yang.

Han told police he earned more than 700,000 yuan ($103,000) from the illegal business.

More than 6 million fake invoices were found at Han's company when he was caught on Aug 11.

As many as 11 printing machines were confiscated. Han is being held in criminal detention.

Shanghai police found a rocketing number of fake invoices, especially itineraries of e-tickets, in July.

They then discovered that most of the invoices were sent to Shanghai from other places in China via couriers.

After investigating the courier service operators and conducting analysis of data for more than a week, Shanghai police traced the fake invoices to Han's printing company in Tianjin.