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February 7, 2008
Federal Indictments in the "Melamine in the Pet Food" Scandal
An update on this story from 2007. Claiming thousands of pet deaths on Chinese imported gluten, adulterated with melamine, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Kansas City has indicted three companies on a variety of counts. Two are Chinese; one is a Nevada company located in Las Vegas. Felony counts were brought against the Chinese companies; misdemeanor counts against the American company. [Indictments here and here, courtesy of WSJ.]
The U.S. Attorney's Office claims that the manufacturer's custom's broker purposely mislabeled the gluten in order to deceive the Chinese government. The likely of success appears negligible at best -- there is scant, if any, cooperation between American and Chinese governments by law or by practice:
[U.S. Attorney John F. Wood] added that Chinese authorities took Linzhun into custody at the time his company was shut down, but he said he didn't know if Linzhun was still in custody.
The government's case against the sole American company also appears weak.
[Wood] added that prosecutors aren't alleging that the Millers and ChemNutra knew that the product was toxic, only that they were aware the product had been shipped into the U.S. under false pretenses and failed to notify their customers.
Is it possible for someone to be aware that a product has been shipped under "false pretenses," but not be aware of what those pretenses are?
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