Taken for a ride

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Police in Shanghai detained a man last week for pretending to be a foreigner in a bid to avoid a whopping 2000 RMB (£185) taxi fare, the Shanghai Evening Post reports.

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The passenger - a Chinese man who could apparently pass for a European - took a cab from Guangzhou to Shanghai, a distance of approximately 1200km. Police were called after the man played dumb and refused to pay the fare - needless to say, it did not take long for them to discover his true identity.

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According to the article, the man had succeeded on previous occasions with the same scam. What luck, it begs the question, might an actual dumb foreigner have in pulling such a fiddle!?

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This article also goes some way to answering the oft asked question, how far a cabbie in China would take you... "Shifu, dao Bo-ci-wa-na!"