Police are being sent around the country to rescue mentally disabled people sold to sweatshops by a man detained in Sichuan Province after it emerged that he has business connections with factory owners in several cities.

Zeng Lingquan allegedly sold off mentally disabled people to work at the Jiaersi Green Construction Material Chemical Factory in Toksun county, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region after taking them into his unregistered Quxian Beggar Adoption Agency.

Police from Sichuan have traveled to Beijing and other cities to rescue the mentally disabled people, according to the publicity department of Quxian county Party committee.

Ten mentally disabled people in Guangdong were freed Tuesday and police went to Beijing to free 30 more Wednesday, according to the Sichuan-based West China City Daily.

Zeng, a former swineherd, began "adopting" mentally disabled people in 1993, and even appeared in media reports praising his work in 1997. The government offered him 15,000 yuan ($2,253) in support of his agency, the report quoted Zeng's wife, Li Suqiong, as saying.

From 1993 to 2006, Zeng spent more than 200,000 yuan ($30,048) on adopting 137 dis-abled people altogether.

Li said she felt no qualms for what her husband did, saying mentally disabled people "also needed to eat."

Zhu Gang, an official from the county government, denied that they gave financial assistance to Zeng.

"We didn't give any support to the agency. Maybe the township government did," Zhu told the Global Times Wednesday.

Zeng once appealed to the county government to authorize the agency but failed, the report said.

Calls to the related officials, including Wang Yong, director of the Quxian county Civil Affairs Bureau in Sichuan Province and Yang Jin, Party secretary and deputy head of Toksun county, went unanswered.