Authorities on Tuesday evening conducted massive raids and took 12 people, including a customs officer, for questioning over allegations that Taipei and Taoyuan officials took bribes to permit imports of some seafood and agricultural products from Japan and Southeast Asia.
Investigators yesterday said the tainted products at issue were expensive items imported by airborne freight that were supposed to be destroyed after failing customs inspections conducted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The products included green asparagus from Thailand that contained pesticide residues and live crabs from Southeast Asia found to contain pesticides and other chemical residues, as well as “sweet shrimp” from Japan’s Chiba Prefecture with a radioactivity level that exceeded the legal limit, the Agency Against Corruption said.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Prosecutors said that Customs Administration Taipei Branch official Yang Chun-yuan (楊俊源) admitted taking part in the racket during questioning after he was detained.
Taoyuan Health Department staffer Chang En-shuo (張恩碩), who was in charge of testing products, was also detained, along with several employees of importers and customs brokerage houses.
Two suspects, surnamed Liao (廖) and Wang (汪), have allegedly admitted to bribing customs and inspection officials to be able to write their own customs clearance documents and falsely claim that the products had undergone and passed inspections.
Yang also allegedly admitted to having accepting bribes from importers who wanted to avoid inspections, filing false documents to clear customs, allowing companies to underreport the value of expensive products and underreporting the quantity of shipments.
The New Taipei City District Court yesterday set bail for Yang at NT$1 million (US$32,580), while Chang was released on NT$800,000 bail and Liao and Wang were released on bail of NT$700,000.
Prosecutors said the suspects would be charged with corruption, fraud, forgery and other offenses.
The Agency Against Corruption said a total of 6,434kg of products with an estimated value of NT$10 million were allegedly cleared through customs by the group and likely had already been consumed by the public.
Meanwhile, FDA Director-General Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美) rejected accusations that her agency’s border controls were a failure, saying that the alleged graft case was an isolated incident.
“The FDA yesterday [Tuesday] joined prosecutors and the Ministry of Justice’s Agency Against Corruption in launching an investigation into whether any FDA officials also played a part in the alleged bribery case. We have confirmed that no other officials were involved,” Chiang said.
Chiang dismissed concerns about import control failures, saying that the case was an isolated one and that the FDA would learn from it.
Pressed by reporters, Chiang showed a hint of displeasure and said: “I do not know what you mean by ‘failure.’”
She said the public could rest assured that the nation’s border control measures were extremely stringent, adding that individuals were the only problem.
“The four revisions to the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法) in recent years have dramatically increased the fines and criminal penalties for individuals responsible for food safety issues and have empowered health inspectors to uncover more food safety irregularities,” Chiang said.
There are 98 border inspectors nationwide who are reassigned to new jobs every two or three years to avoid keeping them in any one location for too long, she said.
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