Eleven arrested for US$300,000 fake green food label scam
Forged tags seized by the police.
Eleven people have been taken into custody for allegedly forging "Green Food" tags in the first case of this nature ever in China, Shanghai police said on Tuesday.
The forged tags were worth almost US$300,000, police said.
The "Green Food" tag is an official certification applied since 1992 to guarantee products produced on the Chinese mainland meet certain standards through the whole production chain.
Producers must apply for authorization from the national government.
During a regular inspection of the green food market earlier this year, local police together with the agricultural and rural affairs authorities found anomalies in certain "Green Food" tags.
They looked authentic but lacked the mandatory company code, police said.
The suspects were identified as the directors of some agricultural production companies in Shanghai who allegedly instructed others to forge the tags for farm produce either from their own production or purchased from elsewhere.
The illegally tagged strawberries, grapes and rice were then sold at prices at least 50 percent higher than their peers on the market, police said.
During the recent raid of the gang in a dozen locations around the city, police seized over 300,000 forged "Green Food" tags.
So far, over 2 million yuan (US$296,000) worth of agricultural products with the fake tags have been sold, police said.
