China's foreign exchange regulator, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, on Monday named a number of companies and individuals who had committed fraud during foreign exchange deals, highlighting the nation's crackdown on such illegal practices.

The regulator has named these companies in a statement on its website only three days after a previous announcement was made, which listed a total of nine bank branches and outlets found to have been involved in fraudulent foreign exchange transactions.

Wrongdoings in these cases included fake contracts and false claims for the use of speculative capital.

The companies named in the statement are from three provinces in China, including northeast China's Liaoning Province and the eastern provinces of Jiangsu and Shandong.

The statement also named a Chinese national surnamed Ma who illegally received 8.29 million U.S. dollars from overseas from January 2009 to April 2010, by assisting with bank accounts from a total of 146 colleagues and relatives.

The regulator said last month it would continue to stop inflows of speculative money, or "hot money," into China and crackdown on illegal foreign exchange activities.

By the end of October, China's foreign exchange regulator had uncovered 197 cases of illegal foreign exchange transactions worth 7.34 billion U.S. dollars since its crackdown on "hot money" inflows was launched in February. Enditem