China's Ministry of Public Security has issued a wanted list for seven suspected ringleaders of Beijing's biggest-ever pyramid selling scheme.

The seven were suspected of running Yilin Wood Company, which took more than 1.6 billion yuan (206 million U.S. dollars) from about 20,000 people across the country including 17,000 in Beijing since April 2004.

The seven wanted people -- Zhang Jianjun, Mou Xiaofeng, Gao Bing, Liu Liping, Wang Honghuai, Zhao Yuping and Yu Feng -- disappeared after the exposure of the scheme, said the ministry.

Four of them -- Zhang Jianjun, Gao Bing, Wang Honghuai and Zhao Yuping -- possessed passports, according to the ministry.

A reward of 10,000 yuan (1,250 U.S. dollars) was on offer to anyone who passed on information that contributed to their arrest, according to the ministry.

The company cheated investors by promising high returns on sales of woodland. It used a pyramid selling model, in which one salesperson recruits other sales people and they then recruit more, according to the police.

Last December, nine managers of the company were arrested. Early this year, more than a dozen key members were arrested and some of the company's assets and illicit gains were seized or frozen.

Even though pyramid selling is accepted in some countries, it was banned in China in 1998. Authorities said such schemes had become synonymous with cheating and fraud.

People guilty of organizing and running pyramid schemes involving a large number of people face prison terms of at least five years and can be ordered to repay up to five times the profits generated by their illegal business operations, according to Chinese law.

Source: Xinhua