If you have ordered lamb or mutton for hotpot in Shanghai over the last four years, you might have been served rat, fox or mink, the Ministry of Public Security said on Thursday.
"After adding gelatine, carmine, nitrate and other substances, he sold the meat as fake lamb rolls [for hot pot] at farmers' markets in Jiangsu and Shanghai."
Wei's organisation was raided in Jiangsu and Shanghai in February, which led to the arrest of 63 suspects and the seizure of 10 tons of meat and additives.
Police estimates that Wei's sales over the last four years have reached a value of 10 million yuan (HK$12.6 million).
In March, police in Baotou, a city in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, stopped a company that since 2010 has been producing beef jerky from duck meat and selling it in 15 Chinese provinces. Almost 15 tons of the fake jerky were confiscated.