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Commodities (thương phẩm) trader Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. struck a deal (ký giao dịch/thỏa thuận) last summer to buy $36 million of copper (đồng) from a Turkish supplier. But when the cargoes (hàng hóa trên tàu) started arriving in China, all it found were containers full of painted rocks.

The saga (tiểu thuyết dài, trường thiên tiểu thuyết) unfolds like a gangland (giới giang hồ, giới xã hội đen) thriller (hồi hộp, ly kì, hấp dẫn), with the Swiss trading house saying it’s been the victim (nạn nhân) of cargo fraud (gian lận, gian trá, lừa lọc). Before its journey from a port near Istanbul to China even began, about 6,000 tons of blister copper in more than 300 containers were switched with jagged paving stones, spray-painted to resemble the semi-refined metal.

The bizarre (kỳ quái, kỳ dị) case highlights commodity traders’ vulnerability (dễ tổn thương) to fraud, even when security and inspection controls are in place. In 2014 and 2015, Mercuria took provisions to cover potential losses after metal contained in a warehouse in the Chinese port of Qingdao was seized by authorities as part of fraud investigation.

Turkish police took 13 people into custody in relation to the faux-copper scheme. Mercuria, one of the five-biggest independent oil traders in the world, is seeking redress (đền bù, bồi thường) in both Turkish courts and a U.K. arbitration case against the copper supplier, Bietsan.