Chinese drivers warned to look out for red cap scammer who runs into traffic for compensation
Police forces tells motorists to look out for con man in distinctive headgear but face criticism over apparent failure to lock him up
Shenzhen police have been criticised for their apparent failure to prosecute a man who intentionally runs into traffic in the hope of winning compensation.
Police from Longgang District in the southeastern metropolis uploaded two sets of photos showing the same man with a bleeding forehead but in different sets of clothes.
The photos posted on the police’s official account on the Chinese social media platform Weibo had a caption referring to the man, who wore a distinctive red cap, as a “pengci professional”.
“Pengci”, which literally means “porcelain bumping”, is a common saying that originally referred to a scam where people tried to have expensive looking china broken by passers-by or shop customers so they could demand compensation. It has since come to refer to other types of scam.
The police’s caption of the photo, which showed the man wearing a red cap, added: “We have received multiple reports from car drivers this month ... Please be aware of the clothes the man wears, and also his red cap.”
Police said Shenshan road, Xinsheng road, and Longang avenue were the man’s “active areas”.
The post immediately attracted hundreds of Weibo users to comment as Shenzhen’s local media shared the news.
One comment, that attracted more than 270 likes, read: “If he is so familiar like you said, and when you even have photos of him like that, why are you not putting him behind the bars but typing warning messages here instead?”.
In February this year, a court in Shenyang in Liaoning province sentenced two men to 11 months in prison and fined them over 20,000 yuan (US$3,000) each for driving into small trucks.
The pair admitted that they had extorted more than 10,000 yuan from truck drivers in the space of a week.
