Three men who claimed they could promote company brands as top brands selected by the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games have been arrested by police in Beijing, according to a report in Tuesday's Beijing Times.

Setting up a so-called "committee of top brands for the Olympic Games" in March last year, the gang, headed by a man named Xu Jun, cheated money out of businesses by claiming that their company names would appear in Olympic Games publicity material.

Staff would be invited to Olympic forums and those who gave the "committee" more than 20,000 yuan (US$2,500) could receive medals, the fraudsters claimed.

A food company official, a victim of the plot, told the local newspaper that they got frequent faxes and emails from the "committee" and handed over money because they thought the committee was linked with the Olympic Games.

"We did not check the authenticity of the committee's name as we saw 'Olympics' there," the official was quoted as saying.

Xu Jun said they avoided big companies because small firms were "less experienced" in dealing with fraud.

Before they were detained, 4 companies were defrauded of more than 80,000 yuan (US$10,000).

Officials with the Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee said the public can find details of all the cooperation programs between the committee and businesses on their official website www.beijing2008.com.

(Xinhua News Agency October 11, 2006)