South American sentenced to 5 years in Shanghai for visa fraud

A South American man, identified by police only as “Godoi”, has been sentenced to five years in prison for providing other foreigners with illegal Chinese visas.Read More

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Night out lands Swedish expat teen in Beijing jail

A young Swedish man has a cautionary tale for bar-going expats, and their parents alike. While out with friends in November 2013, a then-18-year-old Noak Jonsson was involved in a scuffle leaving a bar in Beijing’s university district. Words and blows were thrown; and before he knew it, despite claiming he hit no one, Jonsson …Read More

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Warning: Have you seen these markings outside your door?

Recently an officer from our local police station compiled a series of markings thieves use to tag homes. The officer had uncovered the markings during several years of working the robbery division, and circulated them on WeChat with a warning for people to watch out for them outside their doors.Read More

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Foreigner catches, beats thief on busy Xi’an bus

On the afternoon of January 19, a foreign man thwarted a robbery on a busy Xi’an bus — catching and beating his would-be thief before debarking.Read More

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220K RMB stolen from Italian expat’s Chinese bank account

Last Thursday, August 21, a Shanghai-based Italian expat identified only as “Rafael” got quite a shock when he discovered 220,000 RMB had gone missing from his account. The account, with an unidentified nationally owned bank in Guangzhou’s Tianhe district, was primarily for an auto parts business Rafael has been operating in Guangzhou for more than 6 years. …Read More

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German citizen sentenced to death for double murder in Xiamen

For the first time, a Chinese court has sentenced to death a German citizen, who was convicted in 2011 of murdering his ex-girlfriend and her new partner with a hammer and knife in the south-eastern Chinese city of Xiamen, Fujian. The 36-year-old man, who was identified as “Philipp B” in the German press (but as …Read More

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Australian expat in Dongguan tied up in apartment, robbed

According to a local news report, at 8pm on August 9, a 54-year-old Australian man was robbed at knife point in his Dongguan, Guangzhou, apartment.Read More

Foreigner who cried ‘fraud’ and his father to be fined, detained and deported

Beijing police have announced the foreigner who originally cried “fraud” after being accused by a woman of hitting her with his motorbike will be fined, detained and deported. The incident occurred on December 2 and immediately went viral across Chinese social media. Initially netizens appeared to favour the foreigner’s story, as tales of (fake) accident …Read More

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Two British women stuck in China after argument at Guangzhou shop

Months after a slipper deal turned into a violent row at a Guangzhou shoe merchant, two London women remain stranded in China in legal limbo.Read More

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Potcast: first-hand account on doing time in a Chinese jail

I’m not sure if it’s fitting or unseemly that I should be posting this today, April 20th, but here we are. A couple years back I remember reading about a foreigner who spent seven months in a Chinese jail. Other than a passing, “man that sucks,” I didn’t think much more about it. I certainly …Read More

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Laowai Warning: Casing the joint

As a group, foreigners in China tend to be hit with their decent share of scams. While certainly not alone in their potential victimization, rare does a week go by my (Chinese-registered) phone doesn’t ring with some identity theft scam, China’s criminal element definitely have an eye out for the comparatively affluent and possibly unknowing …Read More

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14 Comments

Gift Recycling: China’s Not-So-Underground Economy

As China celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival this past week, countless gifts were exchanged by friends, families, and co-workers in homes and offices all across the country. In the days following the festival, many gifts changed hands once again, this time behind store counters and in narrow back alleys. These second exchanges were part of a …Read More

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