SCAMMERS in China have set their sights on durians, with some allegedly stuffing discarded shells with modelling clay and cooked potatoes to dupe buyers.
A woman was left fuming after paying 38 yuan (RM23) for a 4kg fruit from a roadside stall in Zhejiang province last week, China Press reported.
“When I asked the seller to open it, he refused, saying that he had no plastic containers,” she said.
When she opened the durian at home, she was shocked to find a cooked potato wrapped in a yellow, clay-like substance resembling durian flesh.
She returned to the stall but could not find the seller.
A source in the fruit industry said cooked potatoes were used to add weight and make the fake durian feel like a real one.
> A photographer from the same daily learnt the hard way that pickpockets were operating at a temple in Ampang, Selangor, after his wallet was stolen while he was on assignment there.
Lim Beng Hui was covering the opening of the Nine Emperor Gods Festival last Friday, when devotees welcomed the nine deities into the main hall at the Ampang Nan Tian Gong Kau Ong Yah Temple.
After taking some photographs, he discovered that his waist pouch had been unzipped and his wallet, containing several hundred ringgit, was missing.
Closed-circuit television footage showed two men behaving suspiciously behind him while he was busy taking pictures.
However, the duo were nowhere to be found afterwards.
