8 charged over Taiwan tainted oil scandal
Print Edition
PROSECUTORS in Taiwan yesterday charged eight suspects at the center of a tainted oil scandal on charges of fraud and breaches of food safety regulations.
Those charged include Kuo Lieh-cheng, owner of the illegal factory which made the oil, and Yeh Wen-hsiang, chairman of Chang Guann Co, which bought Kuo’s product and processed it into lard.
Yeh was charged with 235 counts of fraud and food safety violations for selling the recycled cooking oil to food companies, bakeries and restaurants since March, the prosecutors’ office in Pingtung County said.
Three people, including Kuo, were charged with the same offences while four others were charged with violating waste disposal law, it said in a statement.
Prosecutors asked the court to hand down heavy sentences as the accused had shown no remorse and their actions not only caused a food safety crisis but had hurt Taiwan’s image, the statement said.
Fraud and food safety violations are punishable by seven-year and five-year jail terms respectively, under local regulation.
On September 4, police busted Kuo’s operation, selling hundreds of tons of cooking oil made from kitchen waste and grease from leather processing plants.
Yeh has been detained since September 13 after investigators discovered his company Chang Guann, a well-established cooking oil supplier on the island, purchased 243 tons of tainted oil collected from cookers, fryers, and grease traps, as well as recycled grease from leather processing plants. Contaminated fat was then mixed with regular lard before distribution.
Yeh’s firm had produced 782 tons of lard from the oil and sold it to hundreds of food companies and restaurants.
Hundreds of tons of cakes, bread, instant noodles, cookies, steamed buns and dumplings were removed from shelves in Taiwan and Hong Kong when the case surfaced last month, authorities said.
More than 1,000 businesses, including leading brands such as Wei Chuan, Vedan, Want Want and Master Kong, were identified as having used the oil.
The massive recalls of products that have been taking place over the past month have made this Taiwan’s worst food scandal in recent years.
Taiwan is planning to increase fines tenfold for food safety violations and raise the maximum prison term, as well as offering whistleblowers more rewards in the wake of the case — the second food safety scandal to hit the island in less than a year.
Last December a Taiwan factory owner was sentenced to 16 years in prison for selling olive oil adulterated with cheap cottonseed oil and a banned coloring agent, following a mass recall.
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