Two booksellers were charged with fraud for using fake pictures and paintings to swindle 230,000 yuan from a university professor, the People's Procuratorate of Haidian District, said on Wednesday.

The two suspects, Zhang Jie, in his 20s, and Liu Ye, in his 40s, are both from Shandong province, and make a living selling old books in Beijing.

Yang Chenwei, a Haidian district prosecutor, told METRO on Wednesday that in early November, the pair acquired five old books in a residential area of Haidian district. In one of the books they found the name card of 72-year-old Yao Wenjun, a university professor from Beijing and they planned the fraud.