An underground network of workshops that made and sold fake brand-name sanitary napkins worth more than 150 million yuan ($24.4 million) has been smashed in a series of raids in six provinces.

Since February, police in Quanzhou, Fujian province, had received reports from women who said they experienced itching and pain after using some brand-name pads, said Wu Weijie, a police officer with the Quanzhou public security bureau's economic crime investigation team.

Police then discovered a number of underground workshops making and selling counterfeit sanitary napkins in Quanzhou's Luojiang district.