Fri, Mar 05, 2004 page2

• Police stop sale of rotten pork

  SICK PIGS Officers from the CIB on Wednesday arrested seven suspects at a factory where they allegedly butchered unwell hogs before selling the rotten meat to markets

  • By Jimmy Chuang / STAFF REPORTER
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  The police yesterday said that more than 500kg of pork from sick pigs were sold on local markets.

  The police warned the public to be alert and aware of rotten meat butchered from sick pigs, after arresting seven suspects on Wednesday night.

  "According to our investigation, these suspects have sold more than 500kg of pork from sick pigs and most of them were sold to the military or prisons," said Yang Jung-chen (楊榮珍), the chief of the Southern Headquarters of the National Police Administration's Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB).

  "We have good reason to believe that part of the bad meat was also sold to local markets, but we are still tracing the pork. At this moment, I can only say, exercise caution when buying pork," he said.

  According to law, pork from sick pigs is not supposed to be sold at local markets.

  The seven suspects are Wang Bi-yu (王碧玉), Cheng Shih-chu (鄭石柱), Cheng Chiang-wen (鄭茳文), Kang Hung-yi (康宏益), Wu Chih-cheng (吳誌誠), Liu Chiang-lung (劉江龍) and Chen Hung-cheng (陳宏成). They were arrested by officers from the CIB at their Pingtung factory on Wednesday night. After their arrest, the police discovered that they had killed another 17 sick pigs and were ready to sell the meat.

  Yang quoted testimony by Wang, the factory's owner, and said that the factory has been operating for only one month. All the sick pigs were collected from other farms. They sold the pork from these sick pigs to other factories for making animal feed instead of selling them to the market, Yang said.

  However, when the police approached Liu Chin-lien (劉金蓮), a farmer who raises pigs, she told officers that Wang had actually been doing business for more than a year and Wang always collected sick pigs from her farm.

  "Liu told us that she used to ask another factory to take care of the sick pigs and make them into animal feed at the price of NT$1 per kilogram of pork," Yang said.

  "Then, Wang came to Liu and said that she can do all the work for her for free, so they eventually made a deal," Yang said.

  According to Yang, the rest of the six suspects were also very slick. They simply said that they have worked for Wang for only two weeks. Wang did not pay them anything but she provided free meals and lodging. They said they have no idea where Wang collected the sick pigs from.

  According to Article 33 of the Husbandry Law (畜牧法), judges are authorized to level a sentence of up to three years in jail for the seven suspects' behavior. In addition, a fine of NT$300,000 could be appended to the sentence.
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