A candy caper with hints of The Crying Game

Back when we first heard the story of ladies-of-the-night feeding drugged candy to expat men in order to steal their things, we squealed in schadenfreudetastic glee. Little did we know that there was an even more salacious twist yet to come: The ladies were actually men!

According to Reuters:

Prosecutors told a Shanghai court on Tuesday the five men "dressed as women and, after leading the victims into taxis or hotel rooms, induced them to eat chocolate and other foods laced with sleeping drugs," the Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.

The men then robbed their victims, taking mobile phones, credit cards, and a Rolex watch. They then uses the cards to buy perfume and gold, the prosecutors said.

To the surprise of absolutely noone who's been in Shanghai for over a week, at least one of the poor, unsuspecting expat victims was robbed on Tongren Lu. After feeding him the drugged chocolate on the way back to his hotel, they stole his credit cards and went on a spending spree.

Altogether, the tricky transvestites got about 340,000RMB worth of goods before one of the suspects was finally caught on March 2 while shopping at a cosmetics store, according to Shanghai Daily. S/he then snitched out the rest of the gang.

So just to reiterate our advice from months past: Don't go to Tongren Lu and be a sleazy expat. If you do go to Tongren Lu to be a sleazy expat, stay away from the people who are obviously sex workers. And if you really can't resist the siren song of a woman with a short skirt and an adam's apple, at least don't eat the candy she offers you.

Photo from Shanghai Daily