Backpackers travelling in China should be wary of accepting food or drink from strangers after reports emerged of train passengers being drugged and robbed.
In one week last month, police at Wuhan railway station arrested four people for offering passengers food and drink laced with drugs and then fleeing with their cash, the Legal Daily said.
In one case, police confronted Xie Liangguo and Wang Ping, both from Guizhou, on a Kunming-bound train and found them to be carrying a blue powder believed to be an anaesthetic.
The officers found a young man unconscious on the train. The men from Guizhou admitted they had offered him drugged beer and had fled with 2,500 yuan (HK$2,340) when he fell unconscious.
The second case involved two peasants from Gansu, Yang Jianping and Zhen Zongyin, who boarded a train in Wuhan, Hubei province, and slipped an unknown substance into a passenger's noodles causing him to lose consciousness. They then stole 150,000 yuan.