The recently aired news of Beijing Television exposing a dim-sum restaurant in Chaoyang District for selling steamed cardboard-filled buns has been proved to be fake.

Beijing-based website Qianlong reports that a news producer, surnamed Zi, also known by the alias Hu Yue, have been taken into police custody.

Zi, a part-timer with Toumingdu, or Transparency, a leading program on Beijing Television's Channel 7, took stuffing material, flour and cardboard along with him to the dim-sum restaurant in question in June, a police source revealed.

Zi induced the restaurant manager to mix water-soaked cardboard with stuffing and cook the buns in this fashion, all the while he recorded the cooking process with a DV camera, later editing the story for telecast on July 8.

The municipal administration for industry and commerce and the food safety department launched a joint campaign to eradicate the counterfeit buns, as concerns about the suspect food spread fast.

However, no more cardboard-filled buns were detected in later investigations, promoting the public security department to launch a special probe into the case.

Beijing Television has apologized for the fake news reporting. An official of the station promised that they will learn lessons and further enhance management protocols to avoid any re-occurrence of such an incident in the future.