Vietnam-based Dai Hanh Phuc Co exported 43,000 tonnes of animal feed-grade oil to Taiwan over the past three years, the trading company’s manager said on Saturday, opening up the possibility that more domestic firms are involved in the latest cooking oil scare than previously thought.
The manager runs Dai Hanh Phuc with her Taiwanese partner, Yang Chen-yi (楊振益), who was detained by local authorities for allegedly supplying Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團) with the animal feed-grade oil the Taiwanese conglomerate used to produce oil products sold for human use.
The manager said the Vietnamese firm shipped 6 million kilograms of edible cooking oil and 43 million kilograms of animal feed-grade oil to Taiwan from July 2011 to July of this year.
She also told Taiwanese officials that Dai Hanh Phuc has not been involved in the distribution of cooking oil since July.
Although no mutual judicial assistance accord exists between Taipei and Hanoi, Taiwanese diplomats said their talks with the Vietnam-based company could help serve as “testimony” for Taiwanese authorities investigating the case.
However, Dai Hanh Phuc’s motivation for issuing a statement that it is no longer distributing cooking oil is suspicious and needs to be investigated, local officials said.
If Dai Hanh Phuc exported the animal feed-grade oil to Taiwan as fit for human consumption, it would have had to forge documents to comply with Vietnamese law, local officials said.
If Dai Hanh Phuc’s claim that it supplied such a massive amount of animal feed-grade oil to Taiwanese companies to produce cooking oil is true — as Ting Hsin was found to have done — more businesses could be implicated in the tainted oil scandal than have been identified.
The manager was called in by Taiwan’s representative office in Vietnam to clarify the details surrounding the cooking oil scare that erupted earlier this month — the third of its kind in a year — all of which have involved Ting Hsin.
Ting Hsin, one of the nation’s largest food companies, is at the heart of the scandal, after it was been found to have used recycled waste oil and oil intended for animal use from Dai Hanh Phuc in its cooking oil products.
Ting Hsin senior executive Wei Ying-chun (魏應充), who resigned as chairman of Ting Hsin subsidiary Wei Chuan Foods Corp (味全食品工業) in the wake of the latest scandal, has been taken into custody for his suspected role in the incident.
Yang and four executives at Ting Hsin and its subsidiaries have also been remanded into custody.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
STORM’S PATH: Kong-Rey could be the first typhoon to make landfall in Taiwan in November since Gilda in 1967. Taitung-Green Island ferry services have been halted Tropical Storm Kong-rey is forecast to strengthen into a typhoon early today and could make landfall in Taitung County between late Thursday and early Friday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, Kong-Rey was 1,030km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), the nation’s southernmost point, and was moving west at 7kph. The tropical storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 101kph, with gusts of up to 126 kph, CWA data showed. After landing in Taitung, the eye of the storm is forecast to move into the Taiwan Strait through central Taiwan on Friday morning, the agency said. With the storm moving
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
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