Police in Jiangsu province have caught 14 suspects who allegedly used a printer and soy sauce to counterfeit money that they said could easily fool most people.

According to Wang Tao, director of Dawu police station in Xuzhou, police detained a suspect that used counterfeit money in January. The suspect reported that his friend, surnamed Zhao, provided him with the false bills.

Zhao later confessed that he bought partially prepared bills from a wholesaler nicknamed "KK" on the Internet and then used certain materials, including soy sauce, to make the bills look older, Wang said.

"Zhao and his accomplices, four teenagers, forged more than 10,000 yuan ($1,540) and then used it across Xuzhou," Wang said. "With the information provided by the suspects, we went to 26 provinces and cracked down on the counterfeiting network, which covered 90 cities."

So far, police have busted six production centers and one sales center and seized various kinds of equipment used to counterfeit money.

More than 4 million yuan in counterfeit money and 600 kilograms of paper used to print the bills have been confiscated.

According to police, the paper could have been used to print more than 100 million yuan in counterfeit money.

"Almost all the suspects are computer experts," Wang said. "They showed talent in making the right images and colors. The watermarks and fluorescence they made really resemble the real ones."

One of the wholesalers, surnamed Zhang, was caught with more than 1.3 million yuan in counterfeit money and 900,000 yuan in partially prepared bills. According to police, he said the forged bills could fool counterfeit detectors.

"We did some experiments with the counterfeit money," said Gao Xinchun, head of the economic investigation brigade under the public security bureau in Xuzhou's Jiawang district. "Many shop owners took them for real ones and accepted them without hesitation."

Gao suggested that people should remain alert when they are using bills, especially when large sums are received.

cangwei@chinadaily.com.cn