Thread: 3 arrested in Chinese honey dumping scheme FL.

I.C.E. News Release

November 29, 2011
Jacksonville, FL

3 arrested in Jacksonville honey dumping scheme

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Three people accused of misclassifying Chinese honey as rice fructose in order to avoid more than $1 million in duties have been indicted in federal court on charges related to smuggling goods into the United States and providing false descriptions of the merchandise.

Chin Shih "Jeff" Chou, 48, from Taiwan, Qiao "Dott" Chu, 25, from China, and Wei-Tang Lo, 48, from Hacienda Heights, Calif., represented a number of honey importation companies in executing the scheme.

According to an investigation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the defendants labeled shipping containers filled with Chinese honey as rice fructose instead of honey to avoid a $2.63 per kilo anti-dumping duty. Once the containers of honey passed through customs, they were forwarded to a warehouse, washed of all markings and relabeled as amber honey, which was then sold to domestic purchasers.

"HSI agents and CBP officers working together at our nation's ports of entry provide an important safeguard against those seeking to break the law for their own enrichment," said Susan McCormick, ICE HSI special agent in charge in Tampa. "This type of criminal behavior poses serious dumping risks to domestic U.S. honey producers who are in danger of being run out of the market because of this fraud."

The investigation revealed that Chou and his associates, through various shell companies, successfully imported 900 containers of rice fructose over the past two years. HSI agents, in cooperation with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), are in the process of seizing or detaining 123 containers of falsely manifested rice fructose located at 11 ports of entry throughout the United States. The loss of duty owed to the U.S. government on these containers alone is approximately $1,150,000.

Intelligence generated by the investigation so far is leading to thousands of barrels of misclassified honey that have already entered the United States. Many more seizures are expected in the continuing investigation.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security.

ICE is a 21st century law enforcement agency with broad responsibilities for a number of key homeland security priorities. For more information, visit www.ICE.gov. To report suspicious activity, call 1-866-347-2423 or complete our tip form.

U.S. Dept of Homeland Security

http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1111/1 ... nville.htm

This arrest is good news since tainted Chinese honey has been an issue for several years.

Tainted Chinese Honey May Be on U.S. Store Shelves

By Meredith Melnick Monday, August 22, 2011 Millions of pounds of tainted Chinese honey are likely making their way onto U.S. store shelves, according to an investigation by Food Safety News (FSN). The online daily news site reports that Chinese honeymakers are laundering their products through other Asian nations, including India, Vietnam and Malaysia, in order to smuggle it into the U.S.

The ploy is a way to get around paying the steep tariffs — up to $1.20 per pound — that the U.S. has imposed on cheap Chinese honey, FSN's Andrew Schneider reports. The scheme is being aided by American importers and lax enforcement by the Food and Drug Adminstration (FDA):

Experts interviewed by Food Safety News say some of the largest and most long-established U.S. honey packers are knowingly buying mislabeled, transshipped or possibly altered honey so they can sell it cheaper than those companies who demand safety, quality and rigorously inspected honey.

"It's no secret that the honey smuggling is being driven by money, the desire to save a couple of pennies a pound," said Richard Adee, who is the Washington Legislative Chairman of the American Honey Producers Association.

"These big packers are still using imported honey of uncertain safety that they know is illegal because they know their chances of getting caught are slim," Adee said.

What's wrong with honey from China? For one thing, it may contain lead, a toxin that accumulates in the body and can cause neurological damage, particularly in young children. The lead contamination has been traced back to the thousands of small beekeeping operations in China that use unlined, lead-soldered drums to collect and store honey before transferring it to processors.
Further, FSN reports, Chinese honey may contain tiny amounts of an antibiotic known as chloramphenicol, which was used in the early 2000s to thwart a bacterial epidemic that was killing tens of millions of bees. The FDA has banned the presence of the drug in food; even in small amounts, it can cause a severe or fatal reaction in about 1 out of 30,000 people.

Much of the honey made in China isn't honey at all, Schneider reports:

Another favorite con among Chinese brokers was to mix sugar water, malt sweeteners, corn or rice syrup, jaggery, barley malt sweetener or other additives with a bit of actual honey. In recent years, many shippers have eliminated the honey completely and just use thickened, colored, natural or chemical sweeteners labeled as honey.

The European Union has banned honey coming from India, which is considered a majoring laundering site for honey originating in China, but the U.S. is still importing it. FSN points to shipping data from Aug. 12 tracking the route of some 688,000 pounds of honey from the Chinese port of Nansha in Guangzhou, China, to Little Bee Honey, an exporter in India, over the previous month. Within the previous week, shipping documents showed that six shipments of honey, with the same identification numbers as honey shipped from China, had gone from Little Bee to Los Angeles.

To get a sense of how where the honey on the U.S. market originates, Schneider offers some statistics:

The U.S. consumes about 400 million lbs. of honey a year, about 1.3 lbs. a person

U.S. beekeepers can supply only about 48% of demand; the rest is imported

Of the 208 million lbs. of honey imported by the U.S. over the past 18 months, 48 million lbs. came from trusted suppliers in Latin America and Canada, while 123 million lbs., or nearly 60% of what was imported, came from Asia, including 45 million lbs. from India alone

"This should be a red flag to FDA and the federal investigators. India doesn't have anywhere near the capacity — enough bees — to produce 45 million pounds of honey. It has to come from China," Adee, a past president of the American Honey Producers Association, told FSN.
Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/08/22/t ... z1fDHVFhh8


Tons of Unrecognizable Honey

Posted: 11/15/11 02:32 PM ET

Some excellent investigative research last week uncovered some startling facts: In excess of three quarters of the honey sold in U.S. grocery stores is unrecognizable and would fail to be deemed honey by the United Nations' Codex Alimentarius, European Union and the European Food Safety Authority.

What's as stake is not just a couple hundred million forgone taxable dollars a year by the U.S. Customs Service but rather the health and safety of the American people.

Each year the incomparable honeybee produces 2.65 billion pounds of honey -- nature's golden elixir. In America we consume over 330 million pounds of honey per annum. It's baked into everything from breakfast cereals to cookies and mixed into sauces, beverages, processed foods and even cough lozenges.

Nature conscripted bees over 100 million years ago to be the predominant pollinators on Earth. Exquisite flowers loaded with sugar-rich nectar entice bees with a food; which they dehydrate, add some special enzymes and turn into honey. Honey is analogous in caloric energy to rocket fuel. In return bees inadvertently carry electro-charged pollen from one flower to the next and cross-pollinate the lions share of plants around the globe. They, incidentally, require some of that pollen to grow their young, build incredibly ingenious brains and healthy autoimmune systems.

In so many different ways the bees are also acting as nature's canaries in the coalmines. Of the 100 crop species providing 90 percent of the world's food -- about 74 percent are pollinated by bees. The bees are the first critters to touch and help make our food; they are getting sick all over the world and prematurely dying by the billions. Clearly, something is terribly wrong here.

Almost 2.7 million hives in the U.S. produce on average 66 pounds of honey a year. In 2010, we produced about 176 million pounds of honey. Over the past 18 months we have imported more than 210 million pounds of honey, of which 60 percent came from Asia, mostly China, in addition to about 45 million pounds from India.

The honey market in America is valued at $12 billion. China is the world's largest honey producer.

In 2001, the U.S. Department of Commerce accused the Chinese honey industry, rightfully so, of dumping inexpensive, subsidized honey into the American market at well below the U.S. beekeepers production costs. And the U.S. Federal Trade Commission imposed stiff import tariffs or taxes to prevent the Chinese from further flooding our domestic honey market.

Unfortunately, some humans are nefarious and where there is a will there is a way. Millions of tons of honey that's currently either on U.S. supermarket shelves or in our pantries has been micro-filtered to remove any traces whatsoever of pollen or wax from the beehive. Not only does it fail the standard of even being considered honey; but also worse -- without these essential and healthful micro-ingredients, the honey cannot be traced to its country of origin.

Dastardly tactics that have skirted the U.S. Customs Service have essentially removed the fingerprints of honey. Instead of being able to identify the country of origin as China, a flurry of honey has coincidentally entered our nation from countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and the Philippines -- countries that do not face the punitive tariff that was imposed in 2001 on China.

U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) has been aware of this for a number of years and has been leading the charge to help protect U.S. beekeepers and introduce legislation to provide greater enforcement power at port-of-entry customs offices.

There's a lot more at stake here than just illicit honey laundering and hundreds of millions of dollars. This heinous crime is one that affects our health and wellbeing. In the past, Chinese toys have poisoned our children and tainted pet food has inflicted slow and excruciating deaths of our domesticated animals.

Chinese honey is not safe. Chinese beekeepers are known to use banned North American antibiotics to keep their bees healthy. The bees touch our food first and those carcinogenic chemicals are turning up in honey sold in the U.S. In addition, duplicitous packers are cunningly masking acid notes of poor quality honey by mixing it in sugar or corn-based syrups to feign good taste.

In 2002, 154,000 pounds of Chinese honey contaminated with chloramphenicol, banned in Australia, Canada, Europe, New Zealand and the United States because it treats anthrax but is known to cause bone marrow failure through aplastic anemia -- turned up in our grocery stores, unknowingly. A half a million loaves of bread were baked with chloramphenol-laced honey and sold in the U.S.

Unadulterated honey is a powerful antiseptic; that's why it's used on bandages. Honey is renowned for its antibacterial properties and sealed jars recovered from Egyptian's royal tombs were found unspoiled, after thousands of years. Honey is loaded with vitamins and minerals in specific concentrations that miraculously mimic human blood serum. Honey metabolizes easily and can be an important source of essential nutrients as well as a tremendous source of caloric energy.

Lawmakers must act unanimously and swiftly to protect Americans from potentially tainted micro-filtered Chinese honey. The brazen gall and effrontery to short-circuit our health and food security must be stopped -- now!

In the meantime, I strongly suggest supporting our local beekeepers. Make it a family day (or a romantic outing) and Google local beekeepers; visit their farms or farmers markets and buy their honey.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-reese- ... 91220.html



Chinese honey now reported among import dangers
15 senators urge FDA to get tough on adulterated sweetener
Posted: June 26, 2007

WASHINGTON – First it was poisoned pet food.

Then came the warnings that imported seafood was unfit for human consumption.

Then it was recalls of toys, fireworks, electrical products and much more.

Now China is under fire for shipping to the U.S. honey tainted with a potentially life-threatening antibiotic as well as adulterating exports with sugar.

Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., is blowing the whistle on the latest China import scandal. He is calling on the Food and Drug Administration to implement bans on tainted honey, most of which comes from China.
Complete article at:

Read more: Chinese honey now reported among import dangers http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=42270#ixzz1fDI9JZpI