According to Business Insider, Thailand is being used by China for purposes of illicit “honey laundering.”
Yeah, we thought that was a typo too when we first saw it, but apparently China really is using Thailand to pass off fake honey as the genuine article.
Accusations of fake honey shenanigans first came from the US Department of Justice, which pointed out that lots of honey imported to the States from Asia isn’t honey at all, but rather corn sweetner, artificial flavoring an food coloring, mislabeled as an organic product. What’s worse, these suspicious sweets often contain high levels of lead, toxins and antibiotics.
The Chinese are getting away with this skullduggery by importing their honey to the US through Thailand, where it is relabeled, thereby concealing its true origins.
Wired UK reports that US Customs officials are working on several high-tech solutions to fix their fake honey quandary, including the use of isotope ratio meters, originally intended for measuring the quantities of methane on Mars.
