Four men sentenced to jail for selling ‘ poisonous’ noodles in Jinan

Four men belonging to a gang were recently sentenced to jail for producing more than 200 tons of fake noodles containing excessive amounts of chemical materials in Jinan, East China’s Shandong Province.

The fake noodles have been sold in more than 20 cities and counties across the province and the gang has made illegal profits of about 450,000 yuan ($ 66,663) since 2012, the Procuratorate Daily reported Monday.

The noodles, called “Fen Tiao,” are usually made from beans or sweet potato and used in hot pot and stewed dishes in China. But the noodles sold by the gang were made of chemicals.

Police found the noodles to contain methanol and other heavy metal elements, which are forbidden in food processing and production in China, at a small factory during a local routine inspection in May 2016, according to the report.

Police said that the noodles were steeped inside 10 ponds made of cement in the small factory, which had dirty water everywhere on the ground and poor sanitation, said the report.

“The ‘ poisonous noodles’ are mostly used by street food vendors. The methanol smell in the noodles disappears if they are cooked with seasonings,” a police officer told the Procuratorate Daily.

The noodles were made cheaply and could be sold at a price 10 times higher than the cost, according to the report.

Local inspectors found the noodles to contain methanol 360 times higher than the normal standard and chrome, a kind of heavy metal element, more than 200 times over the standard, said the report.