Rare potatoes

SHENZHEN Municipal Enter-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau intercepted 50 kg of a rare species of potatoes, which have black skin and purple meat, from 10 travelers when they were crossing the border at Futian Checkpoint on May 4.

As the travelers couldn’t provide quarantine certificates for the potatoes, the quarantine officers kept the potatoes for a further check. The potatoes were grown in South Korea and one traveler admitted that they wanted to carry them into Guangdong and plant them in Qingyuan.

Fake cigarettes

NANSHAN police and the district’s tobacco control authorities recently busted a ring that were allegedly manufacturing and selling counterfeit cigarettes.

Four suspects were arrested and 3,635 cartons of fake cigarettes of 34 brands with a market value of 640,000 yuan (US$92,754) were confiscated.

The arrests were made in a factory house in Songgang, Bao’an District, and two shops in Songgang and Guangming New Area at the end of April after a two-month investigation.

The case is still under investigation.

Pyramid scam

A MAN who has allegedly cheated people out of 10 million yuan through a pyramid sales scam was caught at Futian High-Speed Railway Station on Monday.

The suspect, surnamed Luo, 45, is from the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. He operated a company in Zhejiang Province and allegedly claimed to his victims that his amino acid biological product was a high-tech product with great market potential and would bring huge returns.

Luo allegedly developed members who would invest in and sell his products. Luo fled to Shenzhen after investors learned that they were being cheated.