Fake face masks emerge as coronavirus fear grips China

Police in Beijing have detained 29 people in connection with the production and sale of counterfeit facial masks.

The clampdown covers six separate incidents of counterfeiting of the respiratory masks, and comes as supplies of genuine products have become limited in the face of the ongoing novel coronavirus outbreak affecting China and dozens of other countries around the globe.

One case involved the seizure of more than 170,000 fake masks being sold by two “inter-provincial rings” according to China’s state-owned Xinhua news agency. Some of the masks were sold via the messaging app WeChat, it says.

The number of people diagnosed now exceeds 40,000, mostly in China, and there have been more than 900 deaths in the country.

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