BEIJING: Chinese police cracked 3,688 fake-money-related cases and seized about 1.17 billion yuan ($171 million) in fake bank notes in a ten-month campaign to fight counterfeiting last year, the Ministry of Public Security said Tuesday.

The ministry's vice minister Liu Jinguo said at a national meeting that police had arrested 5,974 suspects involved in the cases from January 20 to November 20, 2009, which is 3.5 times the figure of the previous year.

Police also crashed 41 dens making fake bank notes, the ministry said.

The campaign, called "Action 09" aimed to crack down on crimes of producing, selling and spending fake notes.

The ministry would continue its efforts in fighting fake money crimes this year and train more professionals, he said.

To achieve the goal, the ministry restored an anti-fake-money office under its economic investigations bureau and urged key provincial and county-level branches to pool professionals to fight the crime, according to Liu.

Circulations of fake Renminbi are constantly seen in China. The most impressive case occurred at the beginning of 2009 when fake bank notes, whose codes started with "HD 90," were rampantly spreading across the country.