SEVEN suspects accused of being involving in a scam in which men were tricked into thinking they would be paid to donate sperm to a wealthy woman, have been referred to prosecutors, according to Sichuan Province police.

More than 80 men around the country were fooled into paying a combined total of 680,000 yuan (US$97,122), police said.

According to police, the suspects placed a marriage agency advertisement that read: "Rich woman wants sperm donor."

The advertisement claimed the woman was willing to pay 1 million yuan to a sperm donor because her husband had lost his sexual potency.

A middle-aged man in Sichuan's Luding County allegedly paid 10,000 yuan to meet the woman after reading the advertisement in June, according to a Chengdu Shangbao newspaper report Tuesday. The bogus marriage agency allegedly asked the man to pay 1,000 yuan for the woman's contact information, the newspaper said.

After transferring the money to the agency's account, the man called the woman, who asked him to meet her in Chengdu, Sichuan's capital city, police said. He was asked to pay a 5,000-yuan deposit to keep the information confidential.

The man paid, but the woman found many excuses to avoid meeting. Meanwhile, the agency asked the man to pay more fees, police said.

The man called police after paying more than 10,000 yuan and losing contact with both the woman and the agency.

The victims of the scam included men in Shanghai, Guangxi, Shandong, Gansu, Shaanxi and Hubei, police said.

(SD-Agencies)