GUANGZHOU, Dec. 17-- Police in south China's Guangdong Province arrested 34 members of five criminal outfits suspected of selling and processing contaminated pig corpses, officers said Wednesday.

A total of 25.4 tonnes of dead pigs and pork were seized, with an estimated value of 38.5 million yuan (6.2 million U.S. dollars), said Chen Weiren, a police officer with the Zhaoqing City Public Security Bureau.

Chen said it took more than two months for police to uncover the entire dealing and processing chain in Gaoyao, a county-level city of Zhaoqing.

The suspects were involved with buying and selling the corpses of pigs who died of disease, processing them into packaged refrigerated pork and selling them to different cities across the province, Chen said.

He said pig farmers usually sold the pig corpses with the price of one yuan per kilo or even gave them to the dealers free of charge. The processed pork was sold at more than 30 yuan per kilo to local stores and preserved meat plants.

Police also found one of the groups put additive into the processed pork to sell as fake dried beef.

Further investigation is under way.