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Japanese 100-yen shop slapped with fine, 2-year import ban in Taiwan

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TAIPEI (Kyodo) — Taiwan authorities said Wednesday that Japanese 100-yen shop chain Daiso has been fined NT$41.64 million (US$1.38 million) for falsifying import application documents and banned from importing goods from Japan for two years.

Foreign Trade Bureau deputy chief Lee Guann-jyh told a legislative committee that the punishments have been meted out to Hiroshima-based Daiso Industries Co., which has been operating in Taiwan since 2001 and has about 60 stories here.
 
In November 2015, Daiso received a six-month import ban for having illegally imported food products from parts of Japan affected by 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster between July 2014 and March 2015, and selling them with falsified labels of origin.
 
During that six-month period, Daiso could still import goods from Japan on a case-by-case basis after obtaining permission from the bureau.
 
But in doing so, it falsified the dates of the imported goods, altering them to predate the six-month ban period that began in November 2015. A total of 694 import application documents were fraudulent, according to the bureau.
On April 27, the company held a press conference in which it apologized to Taiwanese consumers.
 

May 24, 2018 Posted by | Fukushima 2018 | , , , | Leave a comment

Resident demands city of Fukushima take action after alleged decontamination fraud

fake decontamination may 16 2017.jpgCut bamboo pieces are arranged on a forest floor to make the location appear to have been a bamboo forest, for which companies involved in radiation decontamination work can charge more money.

FUKUSHIMA – A resident of the city of Fukushima filed a complaint Monday demanding the municipality seek the return of ¥12 million from a company that is alleged to have padded its bills for radiation decontamination work by submitting fake photos of bamboo forests, for which cleanup costs are higher.

The city admitted last week that the defunct company — part of a consortium — falsely reported that it worked on a project to clean up radioactive materials from a 2,500-sq.-meter bamboo forest in the city, located about 60 km northwest of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

According to the city, the fee for decontamination work in a normal forest is some ¥500 per sq. meter, but it can rise tenfold for work in bamboo forest where trees are much more difficult to fell.

The company, which closed its doors in March, is alleged to have placed already cut bamboo pieces into the ground on a slope of a hill to make it look like work in a bamboo forest had been completed. It then submitted photos of the site to the consortium.

“The legitimacy of disbursement of taxpayers’ money to radiation decontamination work and the city’s ability to check it have come into question,” the attorney for the male complainant said.

A whistleblower notified the city of the alleged wrongdoing in November, according to a city official.

The man who filed the complaint criticized the city for having failed to take action even after it learned of the allegation. The city is considering filing a criminal charge against the company.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/05/16/national/resident-demands-city-fukushima-take-action-alleged-decontamination-fraud/

May 17, 2017 Posted by | Fukushima 2017 | , , | Leave a comment