Yujiro Kushida reports high fruit prices at São Paulo's Mercadão

Japanese professional wrestler and former WWE athlete Yujiro Kushida has drawn social media attention after reporting an expensive encounter at the Mercado Municipal de São Paulo (Mercadão) in Brazil.

Kushida shared on social media that he paid R$ 95 (approximately 3,000 yen) for just two kiwis. He noted that he felt pressured to make the purchase after being offered numerous fruit samples to taste. He compared the cost of the two fruits to the price of a full barbecue dinner he had consumed the previous night, questioning if the price was fair.

Following his post, Brazilian internet users identified the incident as a common “fruit scam” (golpe da fruta) often targeting tourists. In this practice, vendors offer free samples to entice customers before charging prices significantly higher than the market average. For context, wholesale prices for imported kiwi are approximately R$ 24.44 per kilogram, making the R$ 95 charge for two units highly anomalous.