Three people have been arrested in South Korea for rebranding mattresses from China and Vietnam as Korean-made to export to the U.S., in an effort to circumvent anti-dumping duties.
The suspects, who were charged with violating the Customs Act and the Foreign Trade Act, were taken into custody, the Seoul Main Customs Office said Thursday.
The group allegedly exported nearly 250,000 mattresses, worth approximately $5.29 million, from December 2022 to October 2023, the Korea JoongAng Daily reported.
The mattresses, which originated in China and Vietnam, were falsely relabeled as Korean to bypass hefty U.S. tariffs on imports from the two countries.
Authorities discovered several red flags during their investigation, including the fact that the import and export companies involved operated from the same office. The suspects had also arranged for label-swapping services from mattress manufacturers, investigation found.
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