The Qingpu police successfully uncovered two criminal gangs on Monday evening involved in the manufacture and sale of substandard e-bikes, apprehending eight suspects and seizing 950 sets of batteries and four modified e-bikes on site.

Recently, the Qingpu police received information that two e-bike shops located on Yinggang Road in Yingpu Subdistrict and Huazhi Road in Huaxin Town were suspected of illegally installing additional batteries in e-bikes. On the evening of April 15, the police caught three suspects who were suspected of selling substandard e-bikes on Huazhi Road and Yinggang Road, and found four modified e-bikes at the scene.

Upon investigation, from the end of 2021, the suspects surnamed Su and Sun had rented shops along Huazhi Road and Yinggang Road for the sale and repair of e-bikes, and also provided illegal battery modifications.

The suspects illegally modified the standard 48V batteries to 60V and 72V. Typically, a modified 60V lead-acid battery would sell for about 500 yuan (US$69.06), and the entire modified bicycle would be sold for over 3,000 yuan.

To ensure that the electric bicycles sold to customers could be successfully registered and licensed, Su and Sun would wait until the bicycles were licensed before illegally modifying the batteries. They also violated regulations by increasing the vehicle's speed limit from the standard to 45 kilometers per hour, an increase of 80 percent.

By the time of the case, a total of over 300 e-bikes had been sold, valued at more than 1 million yuan.

That night, the Qingpu police followed up on the clues and uncovered two battery sales spots in Huaxin Town and Xiayang Subdistrict, capturing five more suspects including one surnamed Chen.

Preliminary investigations revealed that Chen and others rented two warehouses at the aforementioned locations for the storage and sale of batteries, and continued to sell in large quantities to Su and Sun, though he knew that the batteries were used for modifying e-bikes.

By the time of the case, the total amount involved was over 3 million yuan, with 950 sets of batteries seized on site.

Currently, the eight suspects have been detained for suspected sales of substandard products, and the case is under further investigation.