Forgery of Sanitary Certificate for Russian Frozen Snow Crab... Three Including Import Company CEO Referred to Prosecution

The head of a food import company and others were caught by authorities for attempting to import several tons of frozen Russian snow crab using forged sanitary certificates.

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced on the 2nd that it has sent two food import company representatives and one representative of an import declaration agency, three people in total, to the prosecution on charges of violating the Special Act on Safety Management of Imported Food.

Frozen Russian snow crab seized by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.
[Photo by Ministry of Food and Drug Safety]

According to the Ministry, they are suspected of forging sanitary certificates issued by the Russian government around November last year to import 6.65 tons of frozen Russian snow crab worth approximately 250 million KRW.

Investigations revealed that when the manufacturing month listed on the sanitary certificate did not match the manufacturing month indicated on the actual product, they arbitrarily modified it. They exploited the fact that it is difficult to visually verify the authenticity of the sanitary certificate and that it takes considerable time to confirm the facts with the counterpart government.

The seized frozen Russian snow crab was judged unsuitable for import declaration and was not distributed domestically; all of it will be returned to Russia, the exporting country. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety stated, "We will continue to strengthen management and supervision to prevent illegal activities during the import process of overseas food, thoroughly investigate illegal acts that threaten public health, and do our best to ensure that the public can safely consume food."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.