The owner of a restaurant claiming to serve abalone for breakfast has been arrested after a sting operation uncovered the ingredient to be a lesser seafood—squid.
Authorities earlier received information alleging that the Tai Po cha chan teng was serving fake abalone meals.
Pretending to be a customer, an officer from the Customs and Excise Department ordered two sets of breakfast, “abalone and ham macaroni” and “abalone and ham omelette,” the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.
Tests conducted on the samples at a government laboratory found that the seafood was actually squid, not abalone.
The restaurant owner, a 47-year-old woman, was arrested Tuesday.
According to a law enforcement source cited by the SCMP, the breakfast meals cost less than HK$40 (US$5), so it’s likely that customers would have known that they didn’t actually have abalone in them. Nonetheless, the fact that abalone was stated on the menu constitutes a breach of the Trade Descriptions Ordinance.
The maximum penalty upon conviction under the ordinance is a fine of HK$500,000 (US$64,300) and imprisonment for five years.
