Business
Fake wine produced in large scale in Hanoi
  • | dtinews.vn, Lao Dong | January 19, 2019 12:28 PM
A ‘wine’ manufacturer in Hanoi has just been found producing large amounts of low-quality wine to sell at dirt-cheap prices.



Low-quality grape wine produced by a factory owned by Nguyen Thi Hoa in Ha Dong District


According to an article published on January 15 on the Lao Dong Newspaper, a group of reporters visited the plant owned by Nguyen Thi Hoa on Ba La Street in Ha Dong District and found the workers busy making different types of wine from various substances of unknown origin.


The wine was being sold at only VND18,000 (USD0.8) a litre bottle which is the same price as mineral water. A worker at the factory said that the fake wine was sold mostly to the countryside areas.


Wine production process at Hoa's factory


Speaking to the Lao Dong Newspaper on January 16, director of the Phu La Ward Police Department, Trinh Xuan Hoan said that they had known that Hoa's factory has been producing low-quality wine for at least five years but claimed they couldn't deal with the issue due to a lack of co-operation from other relevant agencies.


"We come to check their operations every year and issued fines for their violations on every visit but this could not stop them," Hoan explained. "They paid the fines and continued their violations. They have the licence issued by the Ha Dong District Economics Department and it was beyond our authority to suspend their operations. We have reported the problem to higher levels but they were continued there for the past five years."

The police department head added that there are many other factories with the same violations in the area but they could only report their violations to agencies at a higher level to come and check samples of their products.

"Last year we saw two inspection teams from Economics Police Department and the local People's Committee who came to take samples from the factory but then nothing has been done," he said.

Following a series of articles published by the Lao Dong Newspaper on the issue, Hanoi Department of Market Management co-operated with the local Department of Health and Ha Dong District Police Department to visit the factory on January 17 and found over 2,000 litres of alcohol, two litres of grape extract, 570 bottles of grape wine, and 108 bottles of champagne.

A meeting between various agencies held later that day concluded that the licensing of Hoa's factory did not follow proper regulations so the Ha Dong District People's Committee was required to withdraw the licence.

A representative from the Hanoi Department of Market Management told the meeting that Hoa's factory was previously fined VND 6 million (USD261) for violations in production equipment.

"We have taken samples from their products and will decide on the punishment after checking the samples," the department said.

The Hanoi Department of Market Management will also work with its Ha Dong District Economics Department to find out how the company could sell hundreds of litres of low-quality wine for many years.

Leave your comment on this story