A rising number of foreigners have been held accountable for intellectual property infringement in Shanghai, a senior official with the city's prosecuting agency said on Monday while reviewing cases from the past four years.

Some foreign violators secretly purchased and transported counterfeit versions of products with registered trademarks to foreign countries and then sold them to dealers overseas, said Zhou Yongnian, vice-president of the Shanghai People's Procuratorate. Zhou made the remarks during a media briefing on Monday, one day ahead of World Intellectual Property Day.

Xiao Kai, head of the department of financial cases at the procuratorate, said, "The number of such cases that were planned by foreigners who organized Chinese to manufacture counterfeit products in China has risen in the past years." He declined to give a number.