All language subtitles for Asias Underworld s02e02 Food Scammers.eng

China is an agricultural juggernaut.

Its farms produce a quarter
of the world's corn,

a third of the world's fruit
and half the world's pork.

No matter what you eat,

at least one ingredient
could have come from China.

But what if these ingredients
were not what you assumed?

And what if you were not
just poisoning yourself,

but poisoning your children as well?

Mrs Zhou, is mother to 5-year-old boy.

When he was less than a year old,

he was stricken with a mysterious illness.

Then, in September 2008,

officials announced that 14 babies
from Gansu province...

...had fallen ill with kidney problems.

They all had one thing in common.

They drank the Sanlu brand
of powdered milk,

the same brand of milk
that Mrs Zhou had been feeding her son.

It was a case of tainted milk...

...that would eventually lead
to over 50,000 hospitalizations.

A month before the scandal broke,

tests already showed
that Sanlu's milk powder was tainted.

But the product stayed on the shelves.

Sanlu even allegedly bribed Baidu,

China's number one search engine
to bury the negative news.

Only when Fonterra,

a New Zealand company
with a 43 percent stake in Sanlu,

alerted Beijing in mid-September
was the case blown wide open.

Parents like Mrs Zhou realise...

...they had been unknowingly
poisoning their children...

...with tainted Sanlu milk.

On December 31st 2008,

four Sanlu executives went on trial...

...for producing and selling tainted milk.

Tian Wenhua, General Manager of Sanlu,
pleaded guilty.

She received a life sentence.

Deputy General Manager, Wang Yuliang,

who had previously attempted suicide
by leaping off a building,

was sentenced to 15 years in jail.

But that wasn't the end of the matter.

Police were about to discover a network...

...that threatened
the entire country's milk supply...

...and its exports across the world.

The raw milk used to produce milk powder
is sourced from dairy farmers.

To ensure quality,
companies like Sanlu only purchase milk...

...that contains
a high enough level of protein.

But there wasn't enough such milk
on the market.

With the price of animal feed rising,

farmers were feeding their cows
low-quality feed.

The cows in turn produced milk
with insufficient protein content.

Somewhere between the farmers
and the companies,

someone had falsified the protein levels
by adding the chemical melamine.

Melamine is a chemical used
in the manufacture...

...of plastics, floor tiles
and whiteboards.

When ingested, it can cause
kidney stones, kidney failure,

and even death.

Sanlu's milk contained...

...more than 2,500 times
the acceptable amount.

Investigations led police
to the middlemen...

...who bought milk
from farmers, added melamine,

then sold it to the big buyers
at a higher price.

Several middlemen were arrested.

One, Geng Jinping,

was sentenced to death
for selling milk-containing melamine.

And Zhang Yujun,
who had sold melamine to middlemen,

was also sentenced to death.

Tests eventually found
70 contaminated products...

...from 20 different companies.

At least 25 countries quickly banned
Chinese dairy products.

In China,
victims were promised compensation,

but even legal action
did not always work.

Mrs Zhou's son drank Sanlu's tainted milk
for nearly a year,

and still suffers the effects
of melamine poisoning.

Mrs Zhou still brings her son
for regular check-ups...

...as doctors continue to monitor
her son's damaged kidneys.

Since the melamine milk scandal,

China has taken steps
to improve the quality of its milk.

But could the problem have gone beyond
just one product?

Could it have extended to the very heart
of the health authorities themselves?

China has seen several incidents
of cunningly forged food,

including rat masquerading
as mutton, pork and paraffin sold as beef,

and urine-soaked duck posing as lamb.

With vendors greedy for sales
and buyers hungry for a bargain,

the country's regulators
have to carefully check what's being sold.

But what if the regulators themselves
are in on the act?

In 1998,

China created
the State Food and Drug Administration...

...to regulate food and drug safety.

The agency investigated food scandals
and approved the sale of new drugs.

For eight years,
the agency was run by Zheng Xiaoyu.

But in 2005, he quietly stepped down.

Rumour had it...

...that he was under investigation
for corruption.

During his time as the head
of China's Food and Drug Administration,

Zheng accepted 850,000 dollars worth
of gifts from drug companies.

In turn, he ordered the approvals
of over 150,000 new medicines,

over a hundred times more...

...than America's Food
and Drug Administration.

Some medicines turned out to be unsafe,

with one antibiotic
resulting in 14 deaths...

...and hundreds of serious illnesses.

China's leadership,

keen to show its determination
in improving food and drug safety,

sentenced Zheng to death in 2007.

China has seen numerous food scandals.

Some involve passing
a cheap ingredient off...

...as a more expensive one.

Others involve using chemicals...

...to make a sub-quality ingredient
look more appealing.

But there is another type of scandal
that sounds so incredible.

Many people believe that it's nothing
more than an urban legend,

creating fake food from scratch,

out of a mixture
of artificial ingredients.

For years, Chinese media has reported
the existence of fake eggs,

some manufacturers producing
as many as 1,500 per day.

Sold on the street,

each egg is offered for about 6 cents
cheaper than the real deal.

It is said that sellers
can make 70 dollars a day,

double the country's average wage.

Several have dismissed these claims
as a hoax.

But there is at least one person...

...who believes he has been conned
by fake eggs...

...and lived to tell the tale.

After two years of this regular breakfast,

Huang Hui began
to get frequent stomach aches.

Unable to bear the pain,
he visited a doctor.

Upon studying Huang's food habits,
the doctor narrowed it down to the eggs.

Reportedly, a fake egg can be made
in less than five minutes.

The main ingredient
of both the white and the yolk...

...is Sodium Alginate,

a thickening agent used
in the production of syrup.

Yolks are formed
by adding yellow food colouring,

then dropping the mixture
into calcium chloride.

A transparent casing forms,
holding the fake yolk liquid in a ball.

A coating of calcium carbonate,

which is actually the main component
of real eggshells,

completes the illusion.

Using a mould to form the shape,

you have a synthetic egg,

without a chicken in sight.

Real eggshells have a layer of membrane
on the interior,

but fake eggshells do not.

Fake eggs have a chemical odour.

Crack the eggs open, and a real egg...

...will have distinctly separated yolk
and white.

In a fake egg,
the yolk and white mix together.

With his health seriously jeopardized,

Huang had to undergo surgery
to have the gallstone removed.

He also filed a complaint
with the Food and Drug Administration...

...to shut the shop down.

Poisonous milk.

Fake eggs.

Dangerous food whose cheap pricing
attracts unsuspecting buyers.

But paying more is no guarantee of safety.

Buying expensive luxury products...

...can just mean a larger profit margin
for food forgers...

...and an equally high cost to health.

China is now
one of the world's biggest wine consumers,

consuming over one and a half
billion bottles of wine per year.

It's the imported wines,
especially from France,

that are seen as prestigious.

In 2012 alone,

China imported over 250 million liters
of wine from the European Union,

nearly 1 billion dollars' worth.

Wine counterfeiters
are looking for a slice of that pie.

Lin used to work in the fake wine industry
as a salesperson.

Salespeople target people like Wang,

the owner of a small
pub in Beijing.

On many occasions,
he's been offered fake wines by suppliers,

which come with the temptation
of a high profit margin.

Part of what can make fake wine
so convincing...

...is the genuine packaging it comes in.

Get the right empty bottle,
refill it with cheap wine...

...and you can make
a quick counterfeit buck.

Chateau Lafite has become the poster child
for wine forgery.

A bottle of Lafite from 1982,

considered one of the greatest vintages
of the 20th century,

can cost more than 10,000 dollars.

Aficionados say there are more cases
of 1982 Lafite in China...

...than were actually produced
by the French chateau itself that year.

Clearly, something doesn't add up!

Zhang Hong Hai has been
in the wine business...

...for more than 20 years.

He started importing
and selling wine in China in 2005.

The Chinese wine market
is considered young...

...and full of inexperienced drinkers.

That, coupled with Chinese fondness
for expensive labels,

makes it easier for wine forgers
to ply their trade.

A consumer who pays top dollar
for cheap wine...

...in an expensive bottle
can count himself lucky.

Sometimes what's in the bottle
isn't even wine at all.

Excessive methanol intake can lead
to insomnia, blindness, and even death.

Bob is a social drinker
of wine and spirits.

After a night out
with friends drinking wine,

he found himself in the hospital
with a damaged throat membrane.

Elite winemakers are fighting back,

by smashing
or buying back empty bottles.

Unethical manufacturers.

Ingenious conmen.

And corruption at the top of the health
and safety watchdog.

China has declared food safety
and national priority.

But with 200 million farms,

450,000 food-processing companies...

...and fewer than one food inspector
to every 10,000 people,

it seems the potential profits
from food scamming....

...are still more enticing
than the odds of getting caught.

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