Looking for a lucrative career in smuggling black market goods? Forget the drugs, go for baby formula.
Seems these days smuggling drugs isn’t as popular as smuggling baby formula into mainland China and it’s probably a side effect from the 2008 melamine tainted baby formula scandal.
More than 300,000 babies became sick, 33,000 infants were hospitalized with severe kidney issues, and roughly 11 died (although many believe that number is higher) that year because companies were purposely putting melamine in their baby formula as a cheap way to make it seem as if the formula was healthier than it was. Melamine is a chemical compound which is often used in plastics, has a fire retardant quality and is used as a pesticide.
Thanks to that, parents in China really don’t trust companies there to give their children the high quality baby formula they can get from foreign countries.
“Of course I give my baby foreign brand milk. Just name one Chinese brand that we can really trust,” said Tong Xinling, a 32-year-old bank employee from Shanghai.
Last year, 420 people were caught smuggling heroin and cocaine into Hong Kong versus 900 people caught smuggling large amounts of baby formula.
Seems people will do anything to give their babies the healthy food they need. Maybe next time Chinese companies will think of this instead of going for cheap, sketchy profit plans. [ Source. ]
