BEIJING — Police have arrested four people in northern China amid a new crackdown on milk products tainted with melamine, the same chemical responsible for six deaths in 2008, state media reported Wednesday.
The four were involved in the dairy industry in the city of Weinan in Shaanxi province and will face charges of "manufacturing and selling food that does not meet hygiene standards," China National Radio said on its website.
The arrests come amid reports that tainted products supposed to have been destroyed after the 2008 scandal had found their way back on to the market.
The huge scandal was blamed for the deaths of at least six babies and sickening more than 300,000 people.
Most fell ill with kidney problems caused by melamine, an industrial compound added to give the milk the appearance of a higher protein content.
In a sign of growing official concern, the government has dispatched inspectors to 16 provinces to check for food-safety problems, Xinhua news agency reported Tuesday.
Three of those arrested in Shaanxi were officials with Lekang Dairy Co, China National Radio said. The company had been blacklisted for involvement in the 2008 scandal, Xinhua said.
The suspects were identified as Lekang Dairy general manager Zhang Wenxue and the company's vice general managers Zhu Shuming and Tong Tianhu. The fourth suspect was Ma Shuanglin, a milk powder dealer.
Ma sold Lekang 10 tonnes of "expired" milk powder in September and October of 2009, China National Radio said.
It said Ma had purchased the milk powder in April 2008, months before the initial scandal erupted.
The powder should have been disposed under a government order, issued after the scandal emerged, that all milk powder with excessive melamine content made before September 14, 2008, be destroyed, it said.
However, it did not say directly that the milk powder in question was laced with melamine.
Lekang then turned around and sold the apparently suspect milk powder to a dairy company in Guangdong late last year, the report said.
The 2008 scare led to products containing Chinese dairy being taken off shelves around the world. A total of 21 people were reportedly convicted of wrongdoing, with two executed and others sentenced to jail terms.
But new cases have surfaced recently.
Last week, China Daily reported that authorities in southwestern Guizhou province found that products made by three Chinese food companies contained illegally high levels of the toxic substance.
The were pulled from stores, it said.
Earlier in January, state press revealed that Shanghai Panda Dairy had been shut down again over melamine-tainted milk products. The company had been blacklisted and closed over the 2008 scandal but was allowed to reopen.
Three Chinese executives with the company could face trial as early as next month on charges of making and selling hazardous foods, a spokesman in the Shanghai prosecutors' office said last month.
In announcing this week's dispatch of inspectors, Xinhua quoted a Health Ministry official saying: "These cases reveal that the toxic milk powder recalled in 2008 was not completely destroyed and is being illegally reused for new products."
