Seoul Metropolitan Civil Affairs Police Unit Investigates 7 Illegal Manufacturing Sites
Selling Substandard Health Masks at 10,000 KRW Each
An unauthorized hand sanitizer manufacturer is filling containers with illegally produced cleansing agents.
[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] As the demand for hand sanitizers surged due to the spread of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), companies manufacturing and distributing substandard products with ineffective disinfectant content or illegally producing by misappropriating trademarks were repeatedly caught.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government's Civil Affairs Judicial Police Unit announced on the 9th that from February 12 to March 23, they collected 18 hand sanitizer products reported to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) and sold online, and after requesting tests from the Seoul Institute of Health and Environment, they detected 7 products with ethanol content below the standard manufacturing criteria and are investigating them for violations of the Pharmaceutical Affairs Act.
According to the MFDS standard manufacturing criteria for quasi-drugs, hand sanitizers with ethanol as the main ingredient must contain 54.7% to 70% ethanol, but the detected products had significantly lower content, rendering them practically ineffective as disinfectants.
For example, Mr. A, the CEO of a vehicle cleaning product manufacturer, responded to the surge in demand for hand sanitizers by producing about 80,000 unreported products (worth approximately 450 million KRW) at a vehicle cleaning product factory without MFDS manufacturing notification and selling them on online shopping malls. The product containers were labeled as "quasi-drugs" as if they were officially reported products, and the trade name of another company was misappropriated. Notably, 4,000 bottles of illegal hand sanitizers hastily produced at the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak contained only 21.6% ethanol.
Mr. B, the CEO of a hand sanitizer manufacturing company, was caught mixing 36% ethanol with 26% isopropyl alcohol as a substitute to reduce costs after ethanol prices rose due to shortages following the COVID-19 outbreak. The product container falsely indicated that it contained 62% ethanol normally. This product alone was sold nationwide to hygiene product distributors and retailers in quantities of 480,000 bottles (worth approximately 2.9 billion KRW) during February and March.
Mr. C also sold 1,600 bottles (worth 11 million KRW) of substandard hand sanitizers with less than 20% ethanol content by arbitrarily diluting the product with water.
Additionally, further investigations are underway for three hand sanitizer manufacturers producing products with ethanol content below the MFDS standard and one company that labeled their products as quasi-drugs on containers without MFDS manufacturing notification and sold them at pharmacies and other places.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government also booked Mr. D for violating the Pharmaceutical Affairs Act after he advertised online that he was selling 100 KF94 health masks for 1 million KRW but sold buyers 100 health masks of unknown origin, completely different from the advertised products, packed in plastic bags.
The Seoul Civil Affairs Judicial Police Unit urged citizens to always check for quasi-drug labeling, ethanol content, and manufacturer contact information when purchasing hand sanitizers, and to report suspicious products to the Seoul Dasan Call Center (120) or the Civil Affairs Judicial Police Unit (2133-8850).
Park Jae-yong, head of the Civil Affairs Judicial Police Unit, said, "Manufacturing and selling substandard hand sanitizers and masks for monetary gain amid the COVID-19 outbreak is a serious crime that threatens citizens' health," adding, "We will continue enforcement and investigation activities and rely on active citizen reports to ensure that citizens' health and safety are not compromised."
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