Indonesian sailors nabbed over meat imports

Fifteen Indonesian sailors and a Chinese man have been arrested for allegedly smuggling nearly 110 tons of illegal meat products into China, the Shanghai People’s Procuratorate’s No. 3 Branch said on Wednesday.

On February 9 this year, the 15 Indonesians on a Panamanian freighter smuggled frozen meat products banned from import to the country by steering the vessel around customs, prosecutors said.

They had a Chinese man surnamed Huang unload the containers to transport by truck. But they were caught by police as they were about to leave.

Police officers seized 18 containers with 485 tons of frozen meat, including beef, chicken feet and pork shank. Some 110 tons of these products were from banned areas.

Investigations are continuing.

In another food and drug safety case, a man who produced and sold fake ejiao — a traditional Chinese medicine made of donkey hide — for more than 1.3 million yuan (US$188,798) was sentenced to 10 and a half years in jail and 2.5 million yuan of property was confiscated.

He is now appealing and will stand trial again later.

Prosecutors said between September 2015 and December 2017, the man surnamed Shi, who has no license for food and drug production and sales, bought a large amount of ejiao made of unknown materials. The slices were later packed under the famous brand Dong'e Ejiao.