Fake fertilizer producers discovered in Vietnam

Jun 24, 2009, 6:51 GMT

   Hanoi - Vietnamese police have discovered several factories producing vast quantities of fake and diluted fertilizer, a police official said Wednesday.

   'The quantity is so huge, we don't have enough storage space (to confiscate it),' said Lieutenant Colonel Vu Hong Nam of the Ho Chi Minh City Police's economic crimes unit. 'We've had to seal them off in the factory storerooms.'

   In an inspection Tuesday at one Ho Chi Minh City factory, city officials confiscated 150 tons of fake fertilizer.

   On Monday, inspectors confiscated 800 tons of fake fertilizer and raw materials at another factory in the city, according to a report Wednesday in the state-run Viet Nam News.

   Nam said the factories were among several found producing fake or diluted fertilizer across the Mekong Delta region.

   Some counterfeit products used the names of well-known foreign fertilizer brands from the United States, China and South Korea.

   'I am sure these products are fake, but we need to test carefully to identify the level of dilution,' Nam said.

   Nam said farmers who bought the products would suffer crop losses and lower yields.

   Ho Chi Minh City authorities are investigating the factories' owners. If found guilty of counterfeiting, they could be jailed for between one and 10 years.