Eight out of 10 waste-paper recycling shops raided by undercover customs officers in the past few months have been found using rigged scales that register as much as 38 per cent less than an item's true weight.
Paper scavengers, including elderly people, are the targets of unscrupulous traders who use a remote control device to operate the scales, according to chief trade control officer Wong Yiu-cheung of the Customs and Excise Department.
Describing the fraud as 'quite common' in the recycling business, he said the department had received more than 160 complaints about such malpractice from early 2007 to last month. Sellers are paid by the weight of the scrap they collect, so the short weights - achieved by manipulating electronic weighing machines - cut directly into their income, Mr Wong said.
The rigged scales are linked to a remote-control device that can change the way they weigh items, shifting them to a 'non-standard conversion weighing mode' that produces short weights. With the remote controls in their pockets, traders can swiftly change between the standard and non-standard weighing modes on the machines.
To crack down on offenders, customs officers disguised themselves as waste-paper sellers. Among the recycling shops they checked, 80 per cent were found to be using the rigged machines, Mr Wong said.
'The weight shortage ranged from 10 per cent to 38 per cent,' he said. The suppliers of electronic platform scales, which have become popular in the past two years, may have shown the traders how to manipulate them, he said.