French police have seized 20 tonnes of miniature Eiffel Towers in a crackdown on the illegal souvenir trade in Paris.

Nine people – including vendors, wholesalers and intermediaries – were questioned and could face fast-tracked trials after a long-running investigation into the French capital’s lucrative black-market trade in trinkets.

Beneath the Eiffel Tower, or in parks near museums such as the Louvre, scores of people are regularly found selling armfuls of miniature Eiffel Towers to tourists. The trinkets – from keyrings to ornaments – can sell for as little as €1 for five and up to €10 for the largest models.

But those selling the miniature Eiffel Towers are often migrants forced to flee from police checks. The sight of terrified men suddenly gathering up their street displays of Eiffel Tower trinkets and sprinting off while tourists look on confused is a common fixture around Paris’s most popular attractions.

This week, a joint investigation involving French immigration authorities led to a raid on three Chinese wholesalers suspected of importing miniature Eiffel Towers and supplying a network of vendors in Paris.

More than 1,000 boxes, containing a total of 20 tonnes of miniature Eiffel Towers, were seized from two depots and three shops in the Paris region, a security official confirmed to Agence France-Presse.

The haul was estimated to be worth up to €800,000. Cars were also seized in the raids.

Guillaume Fauconnier of Paris police’s organised crime department told Le Parisien: “The 20 tonnes [of Eiffel Towers] are worth between €500,000 and €800,000 of merchandise. Searches also found machines for counting notes and coins. That gives an idea of the scale of this market.”