The owners of a Kaohsiung-based seafood company were yesterday accused of making NT$700 million (US$21.83 million) in the past three years by selling expired seafood to restaurants and traditional markets in central and southern Taiwan, police said.
The Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office is investigating the case for alleged breaches of the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法) and fraud.
The office begun preliminary investigations after it was notified by the municipal Department of Health of a breach of conduct when on Wednesday last week it seized 95 tonnes of frozen seafood at Jenchang Frozen Foods Co (奇美食品).
Photo: Copied by Huang Chien-hua, Taipei Times
The owner of the company, a 60 year-old man surnamed Chen (陳), allegedly worked in collaboration with his son, who managed fresh365, an online delivery Web site.
Chen allegedly cut expiry dates off cardboard boxes containing seafood and repackaged them so his clients would think the seafood had not expired, police said.
Chen also allegedly shelled old shrimp before selling them to market vendors to deceive them into believing it was fresh. Eighty percent of the goods seized were shelled shrimp.
Chen was quoted by police as saying that he had not intended to stockpile so much frozen product, adding that with the decrease in the number of Chinese tourists in Taiwan, he had not been able to sell as much seafood as he had hoped.
Chen was quoted by police as saying that while the seafood has passed its expiry date, all of it was snap-frozen after he purchased it, adding; “It has not spoiled, even though it is not as fresh, it is still edible; it should not be harmful to people.”
The district prosecutors’ office has questioned 11 people, including Chen, and has obtained a list of 30 intermediary wholesalers, it said, adding it is investigating which restaurants and traditional-market vendors have been affected.
China appears to have built mockups of a port in northeastern Taiwan and a military vessel docked there, with the aim of using them as targets to test its ballistic missiles, a retired naval officer said yesterday. Lu Li-shih (呂禮詩), a former lieutenant commander in Taiwan’s navy, wrote on Facebook that satellite images appeared to show simulated targets in a desert in China’s Xinjiang region that resemble the Suao naval base in Yilan County and a Kidd-class destroyer that usually docks there. Lu said he compared the mockup port to US naval bases in Yokosuka and Sasebo, Japan, and in Subic Bay
Police are investigating the death of a Formosan black bear discovered on Tuesday buried near an industrial road in Nantou County, with initial evidence indicating that it was shot accidentally by a hunter. The bear had been caught in wildlife traps at least five times before, three times since 2020. Codenamed No. 711, the bear received extensive media coverage last year after it was discovered trapped twice in less than two months in the Taichung mountains. After its most recent ensnarement last month, the bear was released in the Dandashan (丹大山) area in Nantou County’s Sinyi Township (信義). However, officials became concerned after the
The majority of parents surveyed in northern Taiwan favor the suspension of all on-site classes at schools from the junior-high level and below amid a surge in domestic COVID-19 infections, parent groups said yesterday. About 84.4 percent of respondents in a survey of 2,912 parents in northern Taiwan, where the outbreak is the most serious, said they supported suspending classes, the Action Alliance on Basic Education, the Taiwan Parents Protect Women and Children Association, and the Taiwan Love Children Association said. The groups distributed questionnaires to parents in New Taipei City, Taipei, Keelung, Taoyuan and Hsinchu city and county from Saturday morning
DETERRENCE: US National Security Council Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell said cross-strait affairs are on the agenda at the US-ASEAN Special Leaders’ Summit The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday thanked the Czech Senate for passing a resolution supporting Taiwan’s inclusion in the WHO and other international organizations for the second consecutive year. The resolution was passed on Wednesday with 51 votes in favor, one opposed and 11 abstentions. In addition to the WHO, it also called for Taiwan’s participation in the “meetings, mechanisms and activities” of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the International Civil Aviation Organization and Interpol. In its opening, the resolution states that the Czech Republic “considers Taiwan as one of its key partners in the Indo-Pacific region,” while noting its