The ruse is so ingenious you can't help but admire it: A Chinese factory has been sprung taking empty cans of Budweiser, filling them up with their own homebrew, and then re-sealing the cans for sale.

Footage of the beer fakery first emerged on Chinese social platform WeChat, when an anonymous user uploaded three videos of the factory in the central city of Dongguan.

In the video, a manager can be seen dumping headless cans of Budweiser into a giant plastic tub, where two other workers fill the cans with an unknown liquid – presumably a cheaper form of homebrew.

Then the filled cans are placed on a conveyor belt, where they go through a machine that then welds the top of the cans back on and seals them, effectively making it look like an all-American can of Budweiser.

After footage emerged of the factory Chinese officials from the Trade and Industry task force stepped in to stop the practice on May 5.

According to authorities, the factory was able to churn out more than 600,000 slabs of fake Budweiser a month.

An overwhelming majority of the fake cans would end up in China's darkly-lit bars and nightclubs, where owners would hope that patrons are too inebriated to notice the fake beer.

Budweiser in China is often treated as "the Western beer" thanks to the high level of American advertising it receives from abroad.

This – along with the Dutch-made Heineken and the Japanese-made Asahi Super Dry – makes it a prime target for counterfeit factories.