Beijing - The number of illegal fund-raising cases in China has been rising since 2008, with about 5,400 suspects arrested in 5,000 cases, a senior police officer warned on Tuesday.

Liu Dong, deputy director of the economic crime investigation department under the Ministry of Public Security, said police across the country had recovered losses of more than 12 billion yuan ($1.8 billion) from these cases.

From 2005 to June 2010, police investigated 10,000 illegal fund-raising cases involving about 100 billion yuan, he said.