A woman leaves a store of the Chinese coffee house chain Luckin Coffee in Beijing, China, July 8, 2020. Picture taken July 8, 2020. (File photo by=REUTERS/Thomas Peter)

[아시아뉴스통신=레악카나 기자] Chinese regulators said they would penalise Luckin Coffee after confirming accounting fraud that has already forced the company to delist from the U.S. Nasdaq exchange.

The Ministry of Finance, which began an investigation into Luckin Coffee (China) and Luckin Coffee (Beijing) in early May, found Luckin booked 2.25 billion yuan (US$322.60 million) of sales through fake coupons from April 2019 to the end of last year, it said in a statement on its website on Friday.

It also found Luckin inflated sales by 2.12 billion yuan during, while costs were inflated by 1.2 billion yuan and profits by 908 million yuan.The ministry said that it would now impose administrative penalties on Luckin, without giving further details.The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said in April that it had initiated talks to cooperate with the SEC on a possible investigation into Luckin.

Fortunes of Luckin, which directly competes with U.S. coffeehouse Starbucks , have nosedived since the probe was disclosed in April. During the investigation, Luckin sacked its CEO and COO, executives who had previously held top positions at Chairman Charles Lu's other firms.