Recently, the police of the Huimin District Bureau of the Public Security Bureau of Hohhot City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, went to Yuncheng, Heze, Juye and other places in Shandong Province to destroy a den that distributed diet pills with toxic and harmful ingredients through online platforms, and arrested two suspects.
On April 25 this year, the Huimin District Bureau's Environmental Food and Drug Investigation Brigade received a report from the public, saying that they had purchased a weight loss capsule through an online shopping platform, and after taking two capsules, they had adverse reactions such as dizziness and nausea, and suspected that the diet pill might contain toxic and harmful substances, so they reported the case to the public security organs.
The police immediately carried out a verification around the clues and sent the weight loss drugs involved in the case for testing. According to the forensic center, the weight loss capsule contains sibutramine with a content of 1.24mg/capsule.
Sibutramine is a central nervous system depressant that can cause serious consequences such as tachycardia, frequent insomnia, headaches, and mental confusion after taking it. As early as October 2010, it was announced by the State Food and Drug Administration to stop production, sales and use.
The Food and Drug Investigation Brigade of the Huimin District Bureau immediately filed a case for investigation and locked the online store involved in the case. After collecting and grasping the clues and evidence in the early stage, the auxiliary police of the case-handling police went on a business trip to various parts of Shandong Province overnight, went to thousands of miles to fight for 7 consecutive days, and with the cooperation of the local police, on May 11, in Suiguantun Town, Yuncheng County, Heze City, the two criminal suspects Fu and Dai were arrested at home, and 1 production equipment, more than 500 sets of various packaging materials, and more than 3,000 weight loss capsules stored in cat food packaging bags, with a total value of more than 100,000 yuan.
After interrogation, the criminal suspects Fu and Dai truthfully confessed that since April this year, they purchased the weight loss products involved in the case at a price of 3.5 yuan per capsule through the Internet, packaged them under the name of "Moqian Qingpai Gold Coast Qingyuan Capsules", and sold them through the online platform at a price of 9 yuan per capsule for profit, and their counterfeit sales have reached more than 5 yuan.
The two suspects were escorted back to Hohhot on May 14 and were criminally detained by the public security authorities on suspicion of producing and selling toxic and harmful food, and the cases have now been transferred to the procuratorate.
Police remind: Online sales of diet foods with illegal ingredients such as sibutramine are common and high-incidence crimes that endanger food safety. In view of the situation that criminals use online platforms to sell toxic and harmful weight loss foods, consumers should be cautious when buying weight loss foods, especially to be vigilant about products that can quickly lose weight, and do not ignore the attention to product safety because of the blind pursuit of weight loss results. (Reporter Tang Jianquan, correspondents Jiang Meng, Jia Dejing)
Source: China Police Network