Passing Off Chinese Sea Cucumbers as Domestic: Incheon Seafood Crackdown Uncovers Violations

Ahead of the Chuseok holiday, 16 businesses have been caught violating origin labeling regulations, including selling Chinese seafood disguised as domestic products.

The Incheon Metropolitan City Special Judicial Police announced the results today (September 18) following a joint crackdown conducted over 10 days starting September 7, amid increased seafood consumption ahead of Chuseok.

Investigations revealed that the caught vendors craftily labeled Chinese octopus and yellow catfish in ways that caused consumers to mistake them for domestic products, or completely disguised Chinese sea cucumbers as domestic goods for sale.

In addition, some businesses were caught selling seafood and dried fish without displaying their country of origin at all.

The special judicial police plan to criminally book businesses that falsely labeled origins or confused consumers, while imposing fines on those that failed to indicate origins.

Under current laws, businesses caught falsely labeling the origin of seafood can face up to seven years in prison or a fine of up to 100 million won.

Choi Jong-moon, head of the Incheon Metropolitan City Special Judicial Police Division, stated, "We will continue to crack down on origin labeling violations by combining regular and ad-hoc inspections with planned investigations."

(Photo provided by Incheon Metropolitan City, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.