After a convoluted trail led to the recent arrest of suspects, Qingdao police solved the mystery of who was behind the largest cache of counterfeit goods set for export since a nationwide campaign against intellectual property infringement began late last year.

Fourteen suspects have been detained for attempting to export more than 30,000 counterfeit handbags, suitcases and hats.

Labeled as well-known brands including LV, Adidas and Puma, the trove had a total potential retail value of 232 million yuan ($35.3 million), according to police.

Qingdao police began their investigation after an illegal shipment was seized by Ningbo customs in Zhejiang province last October. It had been "declared by a Qingdao company", the police said.

Police soon found that the source of the goods was a shell company whose registered address and corporate representative turned out to be false.

Investigators were then left with just a single clue - the company's verification form for export payment, a document required by customs. It enabled them to detain a suspect surnamed Zhan, only to find that she was just a go-between.

"Zhan is not the key suspect. She was entrusted with registering the shell company by another suspect, surnamed Liu, and with sending the forms to him," police said.

"With just a name and a vague mailing address, it is a huge challenge to find a person," they noted.

Using the mailing address, the police located a nearby residential quarter.

"Liu paid Zhan via an ATM machine, so we checked the video records of nearby ATM machines and got images of him according to the time and amount of remittances."

But catching him was not easy. Waiting for 10 hours in the rain without umbrellas, police concealed themselves at the entrances of the residential area until the suspect showed up and was arrested.

They then gained more clues from a confession by Liu. "The export verification form was sold several times until a suspect surnamed Wu became the final holder," the authorities said.

Wu, who works at a shipping agency, told police her client's name, a woman surnamed Zheng. She has a shop in Yiwu, Zhejiang province, where she stored the counterfeit goods for the real owner, a man surnamed Zhang.

Investigators found that Zhang does business in Greece, the destination of the fake goods, and had left the country last July.

So they watched for his return.

He landed at a Shanghai airport on Jan 31, but managed to enter the country without arrest, so police listed him as an escaped suspect, searching for him nationwide and posting him as a wanted man on the Internet.

Zhang finally gave himself up in February.

The case involved six cities in three provinces including Qingdao, Yiwu, Zhoushan and Shenzhen and took more than 90 days to crack through interdepartmental efforts, the police said.

That case was solved, but police are still investigating similar attempted illegal exports after Ningbo customs seized around 100,000 fake bags and garments carrying labels such as Nike, Chanel, Lacoste and G&A that were declared by four other companies registered in Qingdao.

Source:China Daily