SHENZHEN’S market supervision administration and Luohu police recently closed down a factory that was found to have illegally used hydrogen peroxide to bleach beef tripe in Shunping Market in Pinghu, Longgang District, according to Thursday’s Southern Metropolis Daily.

    Forty tons of beef tripe, 1.5 tons of hydrogen peroxide and sodium hydroxide were seized. A total of 60 suspects were criminally detained.

    The case is the largest seizure ever involving poisonous beef tripe in Shenzhen.

    Police received a tip-off in January, saying two street food stands in Luohu District were suspected of selling bleached beef tripe as their prices were very low. After a two-month investigation, police took an action, deploying 260 officers in eight teams.

    “At the market, law enforcement officers found 10 white barrels with a 2.5-meter diameter containing bleached beef tripe. The suspects were all wearing gloves and rubber shoes to prevent injuring their skin with the hydrogen peroxide while bleaching the products,” said Zhang Junhui, section deputy chief of Luohu Public Security Subbureau.

    A test showed that the tripe was poisonous due to containing excessive hydrogen peroxide and sodium hydroxide.

    Police arrested 60 people from the factory and sales outlets in Longgang, Futian, Luohu and Bao’an in the action.

    An investigation showed that the bleaching of tripe was very lucrative. After bleaching, the weight of the tripe increased by 300 percent.

    This unlicensed factory had been operating illegally for seven months since September last year, and was owned by five shareholders. The material was smuggled in from overseas. The factory purchased the tripe for 24 yuan (US$3.48) per kilogram and sold them for 34 yuan per kilogram, and as the weight increased by three times after bleaching, the business was still very lucrative even though it kept the price low.

    The factory could process about 4 tons a day and earned 3 million yuan a month, the report said. The factory kept tripe and the barrels separate to evade inspection.

    The products, which underwent defrosting, heating, bleaching, weighing and packaging, were sold to primary markets, like HiGreen, before they were distributed to a secondary market as well as hotpot restaurants and eateries.

    (Han Ximin)