Chief of 'gutter oil' firm detained in Taiwan on fraud charges
Detention of Chang Guann boss, who authorities feared may flee, comes as dozens more food items are added to long list of banned goods
Taiwanese authorities yesterday detained the head of the company at the centre of the widening "gutter oil" scandal as dozens more food items that contain the tainted products were added to a list of goods banned from sale.
Yeh Wen-hsiang, head of Kaohsiung-based cooking oil supplier Chang Guann, was questioned by prosecutors in Pingtung, southern Taiwan, over his role in the scandal.
"We suspected that Yeh was aware of the fraud after we compared his testimony with that of other witnesses. We asked that the court detain him for fear that he might flee Taiwan," a Pingtung Prosecutors Office spokesman said.
Chang Guann is believed to have imported lard oil - made from pork fat but intended for use in animal feed or for industrial use - from a Hong Kong trading company, which passed it off as fit for human consumption. It blended that oil with "gutter oil" - oil recycled from food waste and leather processing - to produce a product it sold as cooking oil to food manufacturers in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Yeh has maintained his innocence, insisting that he thought the oil was safe for human use.
Watch: Boss of Taiwanese 'gutter oil' firm drinks oil to prove it is safe
Taiwan's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that 133 more food items were found to have been made from 24 types of tainted Chang Guann oil, taking the total to more than 1,300. The additions included the popular Master Kong brand of noodles and a range of food from the Mos Burger fast-food chain.
Master Kong and Mos Burger said the affected products were not sold in Hong Kong.
Yeh's detention follows that of his deputy, Tai Chi-chuan, for allegedly collaborating with Kuo Lieh-cheng, the owner of an illegal edible oil recycling factory, who was also detained for selling gutter oil. Tai is also suspected of importing more than 2,300 tonnes of industrial lard oil from Hong-Kong based Globalway since 2008 and blending it with gutter oil before selling the end product to more than 250 manufacturers on the island.
On Thursday, the FDA ordered that the 24 types of oil produced by Chang Guann be recalled, and all products made using the oil be pulled from shop shelves by yesterday.
Taiwanese Premier Dr Jiang Yi-huah, meanwhile, said yesterday that Health and Welfare Minister Chiu Wen-ta had offered his resignation to take responsibility for the scandal but that now was not the time to discuss personnel changes.
In Hong Kong, Secretary for Food and Health Dr Ko Wing-man said the government had been in talks with the catering industry about introducing an accreditation system for using recycled cooking oil as biofuel. The system would establish which companies were authorised to trade in the product
"Following this incident, we will of course step up efforts [to introduce the system]," he said.
Ko denied there were legal loopholes through which recycled oil for animal or industrial use could be sold as edible oil.
He said different licensing mechanisms were in place for industrial lard oil makers and food producers, and the main problem was one kind of oil being passed off illegally as another.
