BEIJING - The Ministry of Public Security announced on Thursday that they have busted a criminal gang engaged in cheatings out of export tax rebates.

In collaboration with the State Administration of Taxation, the ministry has arrested 37 suspects and frozen illicit money of 34 million yuan ($5.35 million) from 23 dens and confiscated 13 tons' of bills involving 102 companies.

Acting on clues from the Shenzhen Municipal Office of State Taxation Administration in November last year, Shenzhen Municipal Public Security Bureau implemented an investigation into the suspicious operation of a local logistics company and reported the case to the Ministry of Public Security.

They found that the ring had set up a multitude of branches in the provinces of Henan, Anhui, Hunan and Guangdong since 2009. They forged value added tax invoices, and made fraudulent reports of export value totalling 2.4 billion yuan ($380 million), resulting in illegal gains of 335 million yuan ($52.7 million).

A spokesman from the Economic Investigation Department of the Ministry of Public Security said that suspects are increasingly relying on high-tech appliances to carry out export tax rebates-related criminal activities, which are spreading from the coastal regions to the central and western regions of China.

He said that the public security authorities will cooperate closely with the taxation and customs departments to curb the proliferation of tax fraud activities.