Flies, roaches, screw nails: China scammer orders 200 takeaways, claims to find ‘foreign objects’ in dishes, extorts US$28,000 in total
- Woman uses array of bogus delivery address then complains to eateries
- Leverages fact that restaurants will pay out rather than risk bad reviews
A woman in China has been detained for blackmailing more than 200 takeaway food restaurants across the country by claiming that she found foreign objects such as cockroaches and screw nails in dishes.
Police from Beijing municipality caught the woman, surnamed Deng, in Xian, Shaanxi province in northwestern China, at the end of November last year, according to Beijing TV.
Deng has been charged with blackmail and fraud.
She is alleged to have made a large number of takeaway food orders from restaurants in different mainland cities then demanded compensation, using the excuse that there were foreign objects in the food.
The “objects” included cockroaches, hair, flies, staples, screw nails and bugs, the report said.
The restaurants involved generally chose to compensate Deng by offering her up to 2,000 yuan (US$280) because they did not want her to damage their business by writing bad reviews.
Deng’s scam was exposed after a restaurant in Beijing reported her to police.
When officers arrived at her home in Xian, Deng appeared innocent and defended herself by saying she had never been to Beijing.
But when police presented her with solid evidence of her crimes Deng admitted to a string of blackmail offences.
She said she had placed takeaway food orders almost every day for the past six months.
To cover her tracks, Deng usually told delivery drivers to put the food at the gate of residential blocks.
Minutes after the delivery drivers left the drop off point, the woman contacted the restaurants to complain about “foreign objects” in the food.
Deng would take pictures of the objects and share them with the eateries. Some of the photos were used multiple times, according to police.
In one conversation on WeChat with a restaurant, Deng pretended to be pregnant and denounced the company for threatening her health.
It is not clear what punishment Deng will face.
Beijing police have caught 13 other suspects who were behind similar blackmail schemes involving a total of 360 restaurants.
Eatery scams frequently trend on mainland social media.
In December last year, a man was sentenced to eight months in jail by a Beijing court for extorting 4,000 yuan (US$560) from several eateries using cockroaches he bought online and placed in the food.
