China arrests four amid latest crackdown on poisoned milk

Police have arrested four people in northern China amid a new crackdown on milk products tainted with melamine.

 

The four were involved in the dairy industry in the city of Weinan in Shaanxi province and will face charges of "manufacturing and selling food that does not meet hygiene standards."

 

The arrests came amid reports that tainted products supposed to have been destroyed after the 2008 scandal had found their way back on to the market.

 

The huge scandal was blamed for the deaths of at least six babies and sickening more than 300,000 people.

 

In a sign of growing official concern, the government has dispatched inspectors to 16 provinces to check for food-safety problems, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

 

Three of those arrested in Shaanxi were officials with Lekang Dairy Co. The company had been blacklisted for involvement in the 2008 scandal.

 

The suspects were identified as Lekang Dairy general manager Zhang Wenxue and the company's vice general managers Zhu Shuming and Tong Tianhu. The fourth suspect was Ma Shuanglin, a milk powder dealer.

 

Ma sold Lekang 10 tonnes of "expired" milk powder in September and October of 2009. Ma had purchased the milk powder in April 2008, months before the initial scandal erupted.

 

The powder should have been disposed under a government order, issued after the scandal emerged, that all milk powder with excessive melamine content made before September 14, 2008, be destroyed.

 

Lekang then turned around and sold the apparently suspect milk powder to a dairy company in Guangdong late last year.

 

In announcing this week's dispatch of inspectors, Xinhua quoted a Health Ministry official saying, "These cases reveal that the toxic milk powder recalled in 2008 was not completely destroyed and is being illegally reused for new products."