(Yicai Global) Dec. 7 -- Chinese authorities have arrested 132 suspects after closing a year-long investigation into in an international medicine scam that generated nearly CNY1 billion (USD145 million) for the fraudsters behind it.

The local Public Security Bureau in Jiaxing, Jiangsu province, first got word of the racket in January, when a customer at a beauty salon in the area reported she'd been duped into blowing CNY6 million (USD871,350) on a phony cancer treatment overseas, the Ministry of Public Security said in a statement yesterday.

Staff at the salon had been screening clientele to find wealthy, non-English speaking individuals who did not work in either the legal or medical sectors. Once they found suitable marks, the fraudsters offered them free travel to and a clinical checkup in Thailand, where a partner posing as a doctor would 'diagnose' the victim with a serious illness.

The swindlers would then charge through the nose for fake treatments they claimed were imported from the United States, which were actually plant-based supplements made in China, exported to the US and then sent on to Thailand. The label on the packaging said the products were "made in and imported from the US."

The PSB began investigating immediately, and found that a biotech firm registered in Dalian, a port city in the northeastern province of Liaoning, had been setting up similar traps across the country since 2014.

China's Ministry of Public Security started making arrests nationwide in April and has now caught the last of the racketeers. It seized more than 500 bank cards and CNY70 million (USD10.2 million) in cash and shut down three warehouses manufacturing the phony drugs.

The ministry also reminded consumers to be vigilant if they come across similar schemes.

Editor: James Boynton