A cat on a street in China. Photo: Internet Source

Acting on a tip-off by animal activists earlier this month, officers from Zhangjiagang, in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu, intercepted a vehicle used to collect and transport captured cats, according to Chinese state-affiliated news outlet The Paper.

Without the intervention, the batch was likely to be slaughtered and shipped south to be served as pork and lamb skewers as well as sausages, the report said.

Police and agricultural authorities have since sent the cats to a shelter nearby, The Paper said, after foiling a plot that could have raked in as much as $20,500.

The report did not mention whether any arrests had been made, nor whether the cats were strays or pets. CNN has reached out to the Zhangjiagang police and the animal shelter for comment.

The Paper reported that animal activists first noticed a large number of nailed wooden boxes carrying many cats near a cemetery.

They patrolled the streets for six days and when the truck began ferrying the cats to the slaughterhouse, they intervened and called police, the report said.

Images published by The Paper showed rescued cats at the shelter resting in larger cages.

One activist cited by the outlet said the illicit operation can sell a pound of cat meat for around $4 by passing them off as mutton and pork. Each cat weighs about four to five pounds after they are processed.

“Some people will do all it takes because it is profitable,” Gong Jian, an activist who is building a sanctuary for stray felines in Jiangsu, told The Paper.

Another activist Han Jiali, who said she took part in stopping the truck, told the Chinese news outlet that it was not the first time, and that she had stopped similar illicit trades before in Guangdong, a southern Chinese province.