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

Ahead of the Chuseok holiday, 16 seafood retailers have been caught violating country-of-origin labeling regulations, including passing off Chinese seafood as domestic products.

Incheon Metropolitan City's Special Judicial Police announced the results of joint inspections conducted over a 10-day period starting from the 7th, following an increase in seafood consumption ahead of Chuseok.

Investigations revealed that the violating vendors used deceptive labels to make Chinese octopus and yellow catfish appear to be of domestic origin, or completely disguised Chinese sea cucumbers as domestic products to sell to consumers.

Additionally, some businesses were caught selling seafood and dried fish without displaying any country-of-origin labels at all.

The special judicial police plan to criminally book businesses that falsely labeled origins or misled consumers, while imposing fines on those that failed to display origin markings.

Under current laws, individuals caught fraudulently misrepresenting the origin of seafood can face up to 7 years in prison or a fine of up to 100 million won.

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

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