Chinese police have broken up a
criminal ring accused of taking meat from rats and foxes and selling it
as lamb in the country's latest food safety scandal.
The Ministry of Public Security released results of a three-month
crackdown on food safety violators, saying in a statement that
authorities investigated more than 380 cases and arrested 904 suspects.
Among those arrested were 63 people who allegedly ran an operation in
Shanghai and the coastal city of Wuxi that bought fox, mink, rat and
other meat that had not been tested for quality and safety, processed it
with additives like gelatin and passed it off as lamb.
The meat was sold to farmers' markets in Jiangsu province and Shanghai, it said.
Despite years of food scandals — from milk contaminated with an
industrial chemical to the use of industrial dyes in eggs — China has
been unable to clean up its food supply chain.
The announcement came as China's top court on Friday issued
guidelines calling for harsher punishment for making and selling unsafe
food products in the latest response to tainted food scandals that have
angered the public.
The Supreme People's Court said the guidelines will list as crimes
specific acts such as the sale of food excessively laced with chemicals
or made from animals that have died from disease or unknown causes.
China's penal code, which forbids unsafe and poisonous food, does not specify what acts are considered in violation of the law.
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