Suspects involved in a scheme producing fake beef at a police station in HCMC. Photo by police
Seven individuals have been taken into custody for operating a scheme that transformed pork into counterfeit beef using cow’s blood and industrial chemicals, supplying dozens of restaurants across the city.
The Ho Chi Minh City Police Department’s Economic Police Division announced the arrests on Monday, putting Le Quang Quyet, Nguyen Duc Dat, both 33, and five others under investigation for producing and trading counterfeit food products.
The investigation began last month when police inspected a processing facility. There, they caught Quyet and his employees in the act of labeling pork as beef. Investigators observed dozens of kilograms of meat prepared for delivery that showed obvious signs of being counterfeit.
Following Quyet’s statements, police expanded their search to a warehouse in Hiep Binh Ward, where they apprehended Dat and seized nearly 250 kg of finished fake beef.
Authorities identified Quyet as the ringleader of the operation, which has been running since February without a business license, tax filings, or labor contracts. Quyet confessed that Dat provided both the production instructions and the raw materials, including pork, industrial-grade sodium metabisulfite, and various additives.
The production process involved soaking the pork in a mixture of cow’s blood and color-enhancing chemicals to mimic the appearance of beef before it was packaged and frozen.
The facility produced an average of 600 kilograms of fake beef daily, supplying approximately 75 restaurants in Ho Chi Minh City and neighboring provinces. The counterfeit meat was sold at prices ranging from VND118,000 to VND140,000 (US$4.48-5.31) per kilogram, less than half of normal beef prices in HCMC.
The case remains under investigation as police work to identify all outlets that purchased the fraudulent products.
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