“War against Junk Food”

The prosecution declared a “war against junk food.”

On June 10, the criminal division of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (Director Lee Hoon-kyu) established a “joint-district criminal investigation team” at each district public prosecutor’s office nationwide with the “garbage dumpling stuffing” wave as its momentum, and reported that it will enforce an extensive regulation against illegal manufacturing and selling of wrongful junk food starting on June 14 and lasting until October 31.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office treated the manufacture and selling of wrongful food as a “killing and injuring act of the human body” committed against all citizens, and announced their intention to restrict and investigate the criminal activity of harmful food manufacturing and selling by principle in addition to inflicting a severe sentence that includes the court’s maximum sentence.

The focused subjects of regulation include acts of manufacturing and selling various wrongful foods: food containing junk additions or harmful substance; food with a past expiration date or that has deteriorated; food that falsely marked the place of origin; as well as bean sprouts and bracken that used agricultural chemicals.

The joint investigation team is planning to include prosecutors from the special division in addition to the criminal investigation team of the Public Prosecutor’s Office as well as organizations that have management rights related to food, including the Department of Health and Human Service, the Korean Food and Drug Administration, the police, the National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service, the National Fisheries Product Quality Inspection Service, and local self-governing bodies.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office announced that they will confiscate and discard machineries and tools used in the manufacturing, processing, and storage of wrongful food if exposed by the regulation, and will impose strong sanctions that include administrative management of canceling an approval or shutting down the establishment as well as informing the taxation office.

jin0619@donga.com