Illustrative image of MSG. photo bambu.com |
HÀ TĨNH — Police in central Hà Tĩnh Province busted a ring producing fake monosodium glutamate (MSG), seizing more than 1.4 tonnes of the powder packaged in bags printed with trademarks.
Võ Thị Lý and Phạm Thị Thủy, residents of the province’s Thạch Trung Commune, admitted to the police that they have been producing fake MSG for almost four years.
Police on Tuesday found 1.45 tonnes of material, two packaging machines and a lot of bags printed with popular trademarks at the women’s houses. The material packages found at the site are of Chinese origin.
Police also discovered 40 bags of fake MSG ready to be consumed at a shop owned by the women at Hà Tĩnh Market.
Lý and Thủy said they bought the material from the neighbouring Nghệ An Province.
Experts said the side effects of MSG are still questionable, but fake MSG is evidently harmful to human health. Adding MSG is a habit the Vietnamese gained from the post-war period, when people relied on it to improve the taste of food.
In related news, local police stopped a passenger bus and found 200kg of stale meat on board.
Thân Vĩnh Đạo, the bus driver, failed to show documents proving the origin of the meat, which included chicken, pork and goat.
He admitted to the police that he was hired to transport the meat from Hà Tĩnh to be consumed in central Đà Nẵng City.
Police are expanding their investigation into the case. — VNS