Officials
incinerated a mountain of Vietnamese-branded consumer goods at the Choeung Ek
landfill in Phnom Penh on Thursday during a ceremony officials said was aimed
at informing citizens about the risks of consuming counterfeit and expired
products.
Excavators
pushed thousands of bags and boxes of fake and out-of-date coffee, fish sauce,
soy sauce and other illicit Vietnamese products into a giant pit before workers
set them alight as officials from the ministries of interior, health and
commerce looked on.
The goods
were confiscated during a March 21 raid on a 23-year-old Vietnamese man’s
apartment in Phnom Penh and nearby markets, said Chan Vanthoeun, director of
the Interior Ministry’s anti-economic crime department.
“According
to the police investigation, these products were transported to Cambodia via
corridors connecting Cambodia and Vietnam,” Mr. Vanthoeun said.
Police
found an invoice in Vin Yeaklin’s Dangkao district apartment indicating that
some of the man’s stock had already been sold to markets, he said.
“Police
found all of these products at the markets in Phnom Penh, such as Phsar Chas,
Phsar Kandal and Phsar Thmei,” Mr. Vanthoeun said, noting that not everything
could be traced back to Mr. Yeaklin.
He said
Mr. Yeaklin had been sent to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to face charges,
but that he did not know the outcome of the case.
Loeung
Ratha, deputy director of Camcontrol, the Commerce Ministry’s import-export
inspection unit, said Cambodians needed to know about the health risks of
consuming banned products. He said the agency would also soon have a mobile lab
capable of testing potentially tainted food in the provinces, saving a trip to
the capital.
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