Case of 100 tons of fake dietary supplements: ingredients reached less than 30%, bribe amount expose.d for former Director

Regarding the case of 100 tons of fake functional foods, the Department of Police Investigation of Crimes on Corruption, Economy, and Smuggling (C03, Ministry of Public Security) has prosecuted 5 individuals from the Department of Food Safety, Ministry of Health to investigate the act of Receiving bribes.

The list includes: former Director of the Department of Food Safety of the Ministry of Health Nguyen Thanh Phong, Deputy Head of the Poisonin.g Monitoring Department Cao Van Trung, Director of the Center for Food Safety Application and Training Dinh Quang Minh, Deputy Director Nguyen Thi Minh Hai and specialist Le Thi Hien. Of which, Ms. Hai was banned from leaving her place of residence; the remaining 4 people were detained.

The defendants were accuse.d of being involved in a ring that produced hundreds of tons of fake functional foods, carried out by Nguyen Nang Manh, Director of MegaPhaco Company, Chairman of the Board of Directors of MEDIUSA Company, and accomplices.

According to the initial statement, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Phong said that he received a total of 250 million VND through Deputy Head of Poiso.n Control Department Cao Van Trung, in the form of "business thanks" after each post-inspection. In which, there were many times of granting certificates of food safety qualified facilities and certificates of good manufacturing practices (GMP certificates).

"When I came back from the post-inspection, Mr. Trung gave me an envelope of 50 million VND and said thank you to the company. Of which, the unit issued certificates of food safety and good manufacturing practices (GMP certificates) four times; reissued them once for two factories and went for a post-inspection once. So, Mr. Trung gave me a total of 250 million VND," said former Director Nguyen Thanh Phong.

Explaining more about this issue, Cao Van Trung said that laxity in inspection and assessment has created loopholes for businesses to take advantage of, affecting the objectivity of management. On the side of the Director of the Center for Food Safety Application and Training, Dinh Quang Minh, also admitted that all product declaration dossiers were based only on documents provided by businesses, lacking independent assessment.

The investigation agency determined that in order to produce and consume functional foods, Manh's company needed a GMP certificate (valid for 3 years) and a product declaration issued by the Food Safety Department. However, instead of following the process, the group of companies spent about 3.2 billion VND on a number of leaders and officials to "lobby", thereby avoiding errors in appraisal and post-inspection.

The mone.y transfer was also aimed at obtaining 4 GMP certificates for two factories, MediPhar and MediUSA, and circulation licenses for 207 products of 9 companies: MediPhar, MediUSA, MegaLife, Viet Duc, MegaPharco, Viet Phap, Joint Venture USA, PharmaCist and VitaPhar, and at the same time helping Nguyen Nang Manh and his accomplices to produce fake functional foods in particularly large quantities, making illegal profits, seriously affecting people's lives and health, causing economic losses, and causing social outrage.

Previously, on April 26, the Investigation Police Agency of the Ministry of Public Security issued a decision to prosecute the criminal case of Production and Trading of counterfeit food, food additives and Violation of accounting regulations causing serious consequences, and prosecuted 5 defendants.

The subjects carried out the process from importing raw materials to production, packaging and consumption on the market. At the same time, Manh allowed his employees to use two accounting systems (one internal accounting book and one tax declaration book) to reduce the amount of tax payable, causing tax losses to the State.

The subjects use the tric.k of printing on the packaging and product labels that they are imported from the US, Europe... but in reality, they are mainly imported from China and bought illegally on the market.

Regarding quality indicators, many components only achieved less than 30% of the announced level. The consumer groups that the subjects in the fake functional food production and trading chain aimed to sell products were quite diverse and mainly focused on the elderly, children... When they realized they were passive, the subjects dispersed, destroyed raw materials, products, and closed the factory.

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