Over 40 suspects have been caught for allegedly producing and selling fake mooncakes of a Hong Kong brand, Shanghai police said yesterday.

The fakes were produced in a village in Zhangzhou City, Fujian Province, and have been sold to different parts of the country, police said.

Police said they started their investigation last month after finding that mooncakes bearing the brand were being sold on the Internet at prices 50 to 70 percent of the authentic ones, which for this year had yet to hit shelves.

After the mooncakes were confirmed to be fakes, police first caught a suspect in Chongming District, who was selling the fakes, and then another suspect in Guangdong who supplied the fakes to the person in Shanghai.

The investigation led to the suspects in Zhangzhou who produced the mooncakes.

The suspects allegedly ran their production lines 24/7.

The suspects were netted earlier this month with over 12,000 boxes of the fakes seized.

Police said that the authentic counterparts of the seized mooncakes are worth over 30 million yuan (US$4.4 million).