Beijing, Apr 19 (IANS): Beijing police have held about 500 suspects in a crackdown on illegal professional training institutes being run in the Chinese capital.

According to the police, victims of the fraud may have been conned out of more than 10 million yuan (about $1.5 million) for training classes, fraudulently said to be set up by central government authorities, such as the ministry of human resources and social security, the China Daily reported.

"On Monday, we went to their Beijing headquarters and took 525 people into custody," police official Liu Chunjiang said, adding that 449 are still being held.

The suspects are accused of using a central government department's name to enroll students for professional courses' training from across the country.

"They claimed to be running classes for preparing (students) for professional licensing exams, and told applicants that they would be given official certificates authorised by the ministry," Liu said.

Police also seized 161 computers and over 500 fake documents, including certificates and invoices. The training certificates were related to a number of professions, including those in medicine and accountancy.

Police acted after it started receiving complaints about the fake classes in March and set up a special investigative team of 700 officers for the crackdown.