A five-member gang has been busted for making and selling counterfeit train tickets, Shanghai's railway police said yesterday.

Officers seized 41 bogus tickets for train services from Shanghai to Chengdu in Sichuan Province, 4,900 yuan (US$590) in illicit profits and a large number of special tools used to produce the tickets.

The case came together on Monday afternoon when a Sichuan Province resident approached a patrol officer at the Shanghai Railway Station. The migrant, a Mr Xia, asked the officer to determine whether the nine train tickets he had just bought were genuine." Following a careful check, police confirmed that all the tickets were fake," said Zhang Guangqi, spokesman for the railway police department.

The victim said he had bought the tickets outside the box office at Hongkou Gymnasium from a middle-aged man of medium height who spoke with a Shaanxi Province accent.

Two days later, officer Yang Qinghua spotted a man matching that description near the Hongkou Gymnasium and immediately called his superiors.

"Xia was then taken to the site, where he recognized the man as the culprit," said the police spokesman.

Around 10:30 that morning, the suspect, identified only as Ai, got into a cab with another possible victim and headed for a department store in Zhabei District.

Police said they continued their surveillance until a woman arrived by bike carrying four counterfeit tickets. Officers then closed in. Police said Ai gave them directions to a hideout where suspects surnamed Wu and Chen were allegedly producing fake train tickets." Five minutes later, officers managed to catch the final gang member, who came back to collect the counterfeits," Zhang said.

(Shanghai Daily January 28, 2005)