Police in Dak Nong Province hold a press conference about the case on April 26
The report was announced at a quick press conference late on Thursday by police in the central highlands province.
The spokesman of Dak Nong Provincial Police Department, Pham Thanh Binh told the meeting that the facility owned by Nguyen Thi Thanh Loan was licensed for trading agriculture products in 2016.
Loan said that she bought coffee bean waste from coffee producing facilities in the area then mixed with rock dust and battery powder, police reported.
Loan sold the mixture to Le Thi Hong Tho and Tran Van Tuan who then resold the goods at a profit to Phan Thi Dung, director of Thao Dung Company in Binh Phuoc Province to make black pepper, the report said.
The report cited Tuan as saying that he bought the mixture at VND 9,000 (USD0.39) per kilo and sold to Dung at VND 12,000 per kilo. Tuan knew that Dung bought the toxic substance to mix with pepper to increase the weight.
Dung was cited by the police as saying that she had bought three tonnes of the mixture and used a part to make nine tonnes of pepper which was still kept at her store. After hearing about police raid at Loan's facility, Dung mixed the rest with fertilizer and excrement and hid it at a rubber plantation.
Samples of the mixture of coffee waste, ground stone battery powder and pepper shown at the press conference on April 26
The police also stressed that the scam had taken place before the contaminated product had been sold to the public.
"Loan started mixing work in January 2018 and had only sold three tonnes to Dung's facility whose contaminated pepper had also been seized," the police spokesperson said.
Answering the media's question about the harmfulness to people's health when eating this kind of pepper, the police said that they have sent samples to the Criminal Science Institute for detailed checks and were waiting for the results.
Le Thi Hong Tho, Tran Van Tuan, and Phan Thi Dung have been detained for the investigation.
On April 23, police prosecuted and arrested Nguyen Thi Thanh Loan, 43, her husband Nguyen Xuan Bao and their three employees who directly participated in mixing substandard coffees, ground stone and battery powder at Loan's facility.
The police have seized over 21.2 tonnes of substandard coffee mixed with battery powder, 40 litres of solution containing battery powder and 35 kilos battery shells.
