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Contaminated oil firm boss held on suspicion of fraud
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THE head of the Taiwan company at the center of a widening food safety scandal has been detained for selling hundreds of tons of “gutter oil” that caused mass product recalls, authorities said yesterday.
Yeh Wen-hsiang, chairman of Chang Guann Co, was taken into custody early yesterday on suspicion of fraud, officials said, deeming him a flight risk and fearing he could collude with other suspects or destroy evidence.
Investigators found that in the six months from February, Chang Guann bought 243 tons of tainted oil — collected from cookers, fryers and grease traps — from an unlicensed factory and mixed it with lard oil for sales to its customers across Taiwan.
A total of 782 tons of such oils had been produced.
Second offense
The firm had earlier been fined Tw$50 million (US$1.7 million) for illegally selling poor-quality lard oil — a clear oil pressed from pig fat.
Hundreds of tons of mooncakes — traditionally served at this time of year — as well as pineapple cakes, bread, instant noodles, steamed buns and dumplings have been removed from shelves in Taiwan since the case surfaced last week.
According to the Food and Drug Administration, more than 1,000 restaurants, bakeries and food plants had used the tainted oil. Many have since issued apologies to their customers for having unknowingly used the contaminated product. On Friday, health authorities announced that a string of additional products, including snacks and cookies from several top selling brands, were to be pulled from sale.
The Japanese fast food chain Mos Burger’s Taiwan branch said in a statement yesterday that it had suspended the sale of five types of hamburgers for containing tainted oil.
Taiwan authorities have apologized to the public and promised to enhance food safety controls in the wake of the scandal, the second to hit the island in less than a year.
In 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, after the authorities recalled tens of thousands of bottles of tainted cooking oil.
The food safety scare has also spread to Hong Kong, where authorities said local chains had withdrawn from sale pineapple buns and dumplings feared to have contained gutter oil from Taiwan.
In Macau, the city’s Food Safety Center said 21 bakeries and food manufacturers had bought oil from Chang Guann through a local importer.
Taiwan’s health ministry has said it has yet to fully assess the health risks of gutter oil. It has ordered tests to see whether samples contain heavy metals.
Local health experts have warned that cooking gutter oil at high temperatures could produce carcinogens.
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