Chinese police arrested 904 suspects since the end of January in connection to a crime ring that passed off more than $1 million in rat and small mammal meat as mutton, authorities said Thursday.

The Ministry of Public Security released a statement on its website saying that the suspects in custody were selling and producing false meat products. Police recently arrested 63 suspects connected to the crime ring, in a case valued at more than 10 million yuan in sales since 2009, according to Reuters.

The 63 suspects area accused of "buying fox, mink and rat and other meat products that had not undergone inspection," which they then coated in gelatin, red pigment, and nitrates, and sold as mutton in Shanghai and the Jiangsu Province for about $1.6 million, according to the ministry's statement.   "Food safety crimes are still prominent, and new situations are emerging with new characteristics," the  statement said. 

Police confiscated more than 20,000 tonnes of fake meat products after breaking into illegal food plants across the nation, the ministry said. One suspect, surnamed Wei, was using additives to spice up and sell rat, fox and mink meat at markets in Shanghai and Jiangsu province.

The public security ministry said police also confiscated more than 15 tonnes of tainted pork in Anhui province, although as much as 60 tonnes had been sold in Anhui and Fujian provinces since mid-2012.

Rodent meat faking is nothing new, as the same has happened in London and other cities as well.