BEIJING (AP) — Chinese authorities have sentenced more than 1,400 people to prison terms of at least five years for involvement in underground lending in a crackdown on a financing practice widely used by China’s entrepreneurs, a police official said Friday.

The 1,449 people imprisoned were among a total of 4,170 people convicted since 2011 of violating rules on loans outside the state-run banking system, said Du Jinfu, a Public Security Ministry official in charge of a task force on underground lending. He said the rest received lesser penalties.