China even has a fake Goldman Sachs

The company has links to gambling businesses

US casino workers alerted officials from China's Communist Part (GETTY IMAGES)

China has gone one step further than knockoffs of designer handbags and watches by ripping off one of the famous banks in the US, Goldman Sachs.

US casino workers alerted officials from China's Communist Party to the existence of Goldman Sachs (Shenzhen) Financial Leasing, based in Shenzhen - a city close to the border with Hong Kong.

The company, which has links to gambling businesses, set up shop in 2013 and bills itself as one of Shenzhen's largest financial leasing firms, Bloomberg reported.

A spokesman for the company told the Agence France-Presse news agency that it does not have any ties to the New York-listed Goldman Sachs and the similarity was unintentional.

"We just picked the name out and it’s not intentionally the same," she said.

A spokesman for Goldman Sachs told Bloomberg that it would be looking into the matter.

The discovery follows an attempt to fake a branch of China's second-largest lender in Shandong province.

A man was arrested earlier this month for creating a bogus outlet of the China Construction Bank, complete with card readers and service counters.