China arrested the leader of a multimillion-dollar coup that publicized saline and mineral water as Covid-19 vaccines.
The man, identified as Kong, had researched real vaccine packaging designs before making more than 58,000 of his own mixtures.
A lot of vaccines were smuggled abroad, but it is not known where they were sent.
Kong is among 70 people arrested for similar crimes.
The arrests, involving more than 20 cases, came as Beijing promised to crack down on fraudulent vaccines.
Although most cases came at the end of last year, new details were released this week.
According to a court decision, Kong and his team made a profit of 18 million yuan ($ 2.78 million; £ 2 million) by putting saline or mineral water in syringes and selling them as vaccines to Covid since August of last year.
A batch of 600 of these vaccines was shipped to Hong Kong last November, before being shipped abroad. Sales were made on the basis of vaccines purchased through “internal channels” from genuine manufacturers.
In other cases, counterfeit vaccines were sold at inflated prices in hospitals. Other criminals have also run their own vaccination programs and have “village doctors” vaccinate people with fake jabs in their homes and cars.
China’s most important prosecuting body, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, asked regional agencies to cooperate with the police to curb such activities.
Authorities had hoped to administer 100 million doses of Covid before Lunar New Year last week, but have vaccinated only 40 million people so far. However, the country has largely managed to bring the pandemic under control with strict blocking, testing and tracking measures.