The police in northwest China's Gansu Province confiscated tens of thousands of fake invoices with a face value over 5.4 billion yuan (790 million U.S. dollars) in mid-January, bringing down a family crime gang, the provincial national tax bureau said Thursday.

Police arrested fake invoice vendor Cao Quan last November and confiscated nearly 655,000 fake invoices. On Jan. 14, the police seized Cao's wife, sister and brother-in-law and found another 368,000 fake invoices.

The police confiscated thousands of fake invoices.[File photo]

Fake invoice vendors are common in Chinese cities. The fake invoices are often used for tax evasion.

Fake invoices lower tax revenues and lead to other illegal activities like smuggling, money laundering and corruption, a spokesman of the Ministry of Public Security said last year.

The ministry vowed in December to continue its nationwide crackdown on invoice fraud in 2010, after more than 7,000 suspects were arrested for invoice fraud in the January to October 2009 period.