XI'AN, May 30 (Xinhua) -- Police in northwest China's Shaanxi Province have caught 20 suspects accused of making and selling counterfeit cigarettes worth 124 million yuan (19 million U.S. dollars).

Xunyang County said on Tuesday that police received a tip-off at the end of 2016 that a resident had bought a large amount of fake cigarettes and sold them for profit.

Police initially found that the person had been buying the cigarettes through Wechat, a popular social media platform.

The investigation team then discovered that behind the case there was a gang, based in Zhangzhou City of Fujian Province, that had been using a dozen Wechat accounts. Their agents were scattered around the country, and a total of 124 million yuan was involved.

In April 2018, Xunyang police caught seven people in Fujian, and eight others elsewhere. Police destroyed a fake cigarette warehouse in Nantong City, Jiangsu Province, seized some 700,000 cigarettes and caught five more people.

Further investigation is ongoing.