Prison terms after company made oil from rotten offal
Print Edition
A MAN has been sentenced to life imprisonment and 15 other people were also jailed in east China yesterday for recycling and selling “edible” oil made from offal.
The Kangrun Company, based in Jiangsu Province’s Lianyungang City, made edible oil from the discarded and rotten offal of chicken, ducks and pigs, material only allowed for industrial use or animal feed.
Between January 2011 and March 2012, the oil was sold to 117 food processors and sellers across China, earning the company more than 60 million yuan (US$9.8 million), the Lianyungang Intermediate People’s Court heard.
One of the company’s two shareholders, Wang Chengkui, was sentenced to life in prison for producing and selling “hazardous food.” He said he would be appealing the verdict, China National Radio reported.
The other shareholder, Li Shusheng, was jailed for 15 years.
Fourteen others, mostly company workers and some suppliers, were jailed from one year with reprieves to 13 years.
Wang, Li and Wu Huajin established the company in 2004, the court heard, but Wu quit in 2009 due to illness.
Wang and Li began using discarded offal in January 2011. At the time, it cost 11,500 yuan to produce a ton of product using proper ingredients, resulting in a profit of no more than 400 yuan. However, using offal lowered the cost to 7,000 yuan.
Investigators found they had bought nearly 2,000 tons of offal.
The company had a legal business license and safety and hygiene approvals to make animal feed but its illegal business was an open secret though the company insisted it just produced oil for animal feed, according to the Legal Daily newspaper.
Its illegal operation was uncovered after a gutter oil workshop in Jinhua City of Zhejiang Province was raided and the cross-provincial network exposed in March 2012, when Wang and Li were detained.
Wang told the court he purchased material from individuals, mostly in the neighboring Shandong Province, in order to cut costs.
Li insisted the company was licensed and the oil was safe, the Yangtze Evening News reported.
The court confiscated around 6.3 million yuan illegally obtained by the company.
In May, legal explanations concerning food safety cases ruled that selling gutter oil worth 500,000 yuan or more could result in a sentence of at least 10 years and even life imprisonment and death.
Health authorities last year launched a crackdown on gutter oil, resulting in more than 100 people being arrested and 20 imprisoned — two of them for life — as part of the campaign.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
