More than 70,000 Chinese mitten crabs contaminated with dioxin were put on sale nationwide after importers allegedly breached rules by selling the crabs to intermediaries before tests on samples were completed, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday.
Chinese mitten crabs — also known as hairy crabs — are a prized seasonal delicacy.
Ciaoaibo International Enterprises (喬艾舶國際企業) and Youfong Enterprises (侑豐企業) on Oct. 14 imported 14,954kg of Chinese farm-raised hairy crabs to Keelung, FDA Northern Center Deputy Director Cheng Wei-chih (鄭維智) told a news conference in Taipei.
Photo courtesy of the Food and Drug Administration
Each of the three lots were sampled and put into storage while FDA laboratories ran tests on the samples, as allowed by regulations covering food products that are time-consuming to inspect, he said.
The tests showed that all three lots did not meet safety standards for residual dioxin and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyl (DL-PCB), and the FDA moved to block the sales of the crabs, he said.
However, before the results were received, the Coast Guard Administration had already begun an inquiry into the increase of hairy crabs being marketed on social media and sold at fish markets, he said.
Investigators believe the crab shipments placed in storage were replaced with dead crabs, and the live crabs sold before the test results were received, he said.
Authorities do not know how many of the tainted crabs have been sold, or how many might remain in circulation, he said.
FDA regulations state that the safety limit for dioxin in food is 3.5 picograms per gram (pg/g) and 6.5pg/g for DL-PCB, but the sampled crabs examined contained as much as 25.1 pg/g of dioxin and 27pg/g of DL-PCB, he said.
The Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法) bans the manufacture or sale of dioxin or DL-PCB-contaminated food, and contravening the act is punishable by imprisonment of up to seven years or a fine of up to NT$80 million (US$2.58 million), he said.
The FDA in October last year mandated the dioxin and DL-PCB residue tests, and only 31 Chinese hairy crab farms are certified to export their crabs to Taiwan.
The lots of crabs that failed inspections came from one or more of the authorized farms, an unnamed FDA source said.
Additional reporting by Wu Sheng-ju
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