" The Largest Food Fraud Case in United States History"



When you think of honey whats the first that comes to your mind? Do you think of thousands of busy bees working meticulously, collecting pollen, converting it and storing it as honey? Honey is one of the worlds valued natural sweeteners and the demand for it in the United States steadily grows each year. In 2016 Americans consumed over 230 million pounds of honey. Very little honey consumed in the United States is produced domestically, about 70% is imported.

An article in The New York Times says, "honey, No. 0409 on the 2015 Harmonized Tariff Schedule, has been a focal point for the lab and the source of a long-running international food scam that has challenged even the existing forensic technology". When honey is imported a sample is take to a lab to ensure that the product wasn't adulterated with other sweeteners or contain harmful antibiotics. It also determines where it originated from. Honey that has originated from some countries, like China, may be subjected to additional taxes. In 2001, the Commerce Department enacted a large tariff on Chinese honey because local farmer complained that thy were dumping their honey on the US market. This didn't stop Chinese producers from trying to get their product into the market. They engaged in what is known as transshipment or honey laundering, it refers to sending products to ports in places like Vietnam, South Korea or Malaysia before shipping it to the US. That way, it would appear like the products came from the third-party country. In 2008, test results revealed that honey imported from Thailand, Russia and the Philippians had originated from China.  Testing honey samples is what helped the US government build d a solid case against multiple companies suspected of cheating the government out of millions of dollars in taxes by buying and selling illegal Chinese honey. The video below also talks about what transshipping is and why importing Chinese honey illegally can be dangerous.




Alfred L. Wolff Inc. (ALW) is a German based food distribution company and in March of 2008 several employees working at their Chicago location were charged for laundering Chinese honey and knowingly selling adulterated honey. Stephanie Geisselbach (national sales manager) and  Magnus Von Buddenbrock (general manager) were at the heart of the multi-million dollar scheme. Between 2004-2006 AWL had laundered  about 200 million pounds of honey through India, Poland and other nations to evade over $80 million dollars in taxes. Investigators uncovered evidence to show that the company had used fake country of origin documents for shipments, replaced labels on containers of Chinese honey with fraudulent ones and had blended Chinese honey with glucose syrup or honey from other countries to try and mask its origin.





Geisslebach and Von Buddenbrock both submitted plea agreements to the Federal District Court of Norther Illinois admitting they were aware the Chinese honey was being shipped to India then relabeled as Indian honey before getting shipped to the US. They conspired with other AWL executives and Chinese traders. From September 2007 to May 2008 Von Buddenbrock facilitated 11 purchase orders of falsely labelled Chinese honey, avoiding over $3 million dollars in taxes. From December 2006 to May 2008, Giesslebach admitted to avoiding over $17 million dollars in duties on over 100 orders of Chinese honey. She also admitted that she requested a custom house broker to refrain from listing the company on any trade documents in order to avoid a paper trail. She would also review shipment listings, country of origin certificates, lab reports and other documents to ensure that China was not mentioned on anything. She would then show the doctored documents to American clients. Worst of all, Giesslebach took part in selling a shipment of honey contaminated with an antibiotic called chloramphenicol at a discounted price. Cholramphenicol is given to bees to make the live longer, it can be fatal to humans if ingested which is why it is illegal to use it in the United States. Giesslebach was sentenced to one year and a day in federal prison and Von Budderbrock was sentenced to 6 months home confinement and 3 years probation.










Sources:
U.s. Honey Industry Report - 2016
https://www.beeculture.com/u-s-honey-industry-report-2016/

11 Indicted For Illegally Importing Chinese Honey Into Us
Press Trust of India - https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/11-indicted-for-illegally-importing-chinese-honey-into-us-429711

Food Detectives on a Tough Case. Peter Smith - https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/20/science/a-lab-is-trying-to-keep-china-from-dodging-us-tariffs-on-honey.html

Rotten: S1E1 "Lawyers, Guns and Honey"
Netflix Studios - 2017
Honey Laundering
http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/world/honey-laundering


Comments

  1. Trevor DiDuroNovember 15, 2018 at 4:11 PM

    Marchael,

    Wow, I had never heard of "transshipping" before your post. It makes me wonder how many other companies do this, and with what products.

    I personally always buy local honey. I never really knew the exact reason why I was told to when I was younger, but I just always stuck with it. This type of sketchy business tactic gives me a good reason to continue to go local, though!

    -Trevor

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownNovember 15, 2018 at 4:41 PM

      Trevor,

      Honestly, I had only started eating honey a few years ago. I never had a taste for it when I was a child. But after what I know now, I buy local honey. I first heard of the case last January when I watched a documentary series called "Rotten" on Netflix. I was shocked as well. I had always trusted that the things stocked on the shelves at the grocery store was real honey. Luckily there are labs that test some of the honey we import but the US imports too much to test each shipment.

      -Marchael

      Delete
  2. AnonymousNovember 15, 2018 at 6:38 PM

    It really seems that people are finding any kind of way to sneak their products into the food markets. In my research i have found the large companies are buying honey producers out and taking over their business just to improve their own profit, even if it means using artificial products. That is just sad to think about.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownNovember 15, 2018 at 8:12 PM

      I agree, as consumers we want to trust that the food off the shelves of the grocery store are safe. During my research I also read about how difficult scientist have been working to keep up with adulterers. Producers are constantly figuring out new ways to make their honey pass inspection. Also, some companies are taking over local producers as well and slapping the "natural" label on their products.

      Delete
  3. Drew DestinNovember 16, 2018 at 7:17 PM

    The fact that these companies were sourcing from multiple places and lying about the origin is truly disheartening. It goes to show how companies of today are disregarding their responsibility to to the social expectations of consumers to really only focus on pulling in the most amount of money possible.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownNovember 16, 2018 at 7:58 PM

      It really is astonishing how they could seeming have no bad conscience about what they were doing. Does this make you want to be more aware of where your food is sourced from? For me, the though came up constantly while I wrote this blog.

      Delete
  4. Micheal AlexanderDecember 5, 2020 at 5:48 AM

    This is a really informative knowledge, Thanks for posting this informative Information. Honey from local bees

    ReplyDelete
  5. OduatenFturo_1998April 23, 2022 at 6:43 AM

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