Children are photographed when begging in Tianhe City in Hunan Province.

At 11:30 am yesterday, outside a dilapidated house in Hunan Province's Xiangtan City, eight policemen surrounded the building, blocking each exit and waiting to go into action.

Inside were children thought to have been forced into begging by adults who looked more like human traffickers than relatives, according to Zhang Hongfeng.

Zhang, one of the people taking part in a nationwide campaign to rescue child beggars by taking pictures and posting them online, had been following the beggar "family" for days, gathering evidence.

Zhang believed yesterday's raid would free the children he'd photographed from the clutch of human traffickers. But he was mistaken.

There was no resistance when the police confronted adults inside the house. They found three children and one infant, but the children all said that the adults were their relatives.

With the children, the oldest just 8, too young to hold ID cards, the police could find no evidence to prove Zhang's assertion they were the victims of human traffickers.

A line was drawn under the case when the police admonished the adults to immediately take the children back home to Guizhou.

It was an embarrassing setback.