Shanghai police have detained five people for illegal trading of foreign exchange, state media reported Thursday without giving the full name of the suspects or the company they work for, state media reported.

“The police remind [you] that the purchase and sale of foreign exchange should be carried out in the trading venues specified by the state, and the illegal trading of foreign exchange seriously disrupts the order of the national financial market,” reported Jiefang Daily, also translated as Liberation Daily, the official daily newspaper of the Shanghai Communist Party committee.

“The police will severely crack down on those suspected of crimes.”

The report said a female suspect surnamed He, 54, was the person in charge of an immigration service company. Another female employee, surnamed Sun, 39, allegedly provided foreign exchange trading for others collecting yuan in China and providing foreign currencies overseas, according to the report.

Three other staffers at the firm — one man and two women — are accused of illegally providing illegal exchange of foreign currency for others through the introduction of underground money changers, the report said.

--With assistance from Evelyn Yu.

(This story has been corrected to show the suspects have been detained rather than arrested.)