A CHINESE gang netted £5m by recycling USED condoms and flogging them to unsuspecting supermarkets and hotel chains.

Cops in Hebei seized 500,000 boxes of the 'crude' fakes - which were even sold in forged Durex boxes.

2 The haul was worth £5m

The bust saw 17 people arrested across Henan, Hebei, and Zhejiang.

Cangnan police chief Zheng Xidan said: “We found the workshops where the suspects made those condoms in rural areas in Henan and Hebei. They were very simple and crude.

"The hygienic conditions in those villages were very bad. We saw the condoms they were making – they blended the condoms with silicone oil in a bucket.

"It was totally below official manufacturing standards.”

2 The fakes were even sold in forged Durex boxes Credit: Alamy

The fakes were sold wholesale to retailers for 11p per pack - a fraction of the £16 sticker price for real ones.

They were found to contain fungi, thin patches, and even holes.

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Cangnan police swooped after a tip-off that a local businesman was flogging condoms for far below the market value.

In February, cops in Yuncheng, a city in Shanxi province, seized 2million fake Durex and Okamoto condoms.

More than 10 similar cases had been heard by courts in Henan alone since 2014, according to mainland media reports, and those found guilty have been sentenced to up to four years in jail.

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