China says suspect detained in food scare 2 years ago; tainted dumplings sickened 10 in Japan

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China has suspect in Japan tainted dumplings case

BEIJING — China has detained a man suspected of poisoning frozen dumplings that sickened at least 10 people in Japan two years ago, which caused a food safety scare in a key export market and further hurt foreign confidence in Chinese products.

The news contradicts Chinese authorities’ earlier findings that there was little chance the dumplings were poisoned with pesticide in China.

The state-run Xinhua News Agency, citing a Ministry of Public Security statement, reported late Friday that a temporary employee at a food plant in northern China is suspected of tainting the dumplings out of revenge because he was unhappy with his pay and some of his colleagues.

The statement said 36-year-old Lu Yueting had confessed and that police had found injectors he used to poison the dumplings, Xinhua reported.

“Japan will continue its cooperation with China on this matter. We hope to see an early resolution to the case,” Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said in a statement Saturday.

Traces of methamidophos, an insecticide banned in Japan, were found in the dumplings, on the packaging and in the vomit of the people who were sickened in December 2007 and January 2008 after eating two separate brands of dumplings made at a factory in northern China’s Hebei province.

At the time, a top criminal investigator at the Ministry of Public Security announced that an investigation had turned up nothing unusual at the Tianyang Food Processing Ltd. factory, while Japanese police believed the dumplings had not been poisoned in Japan. Japan’s Kyodo News agency reported that National Police Agency chief Hiroto Yoshimura was displeased with China’s response.

The poisoned dumplings led to a food-safety scare in Japan and hurt Beijing’s efforts to improve foreign consumer confidence in its exports after a series of food and product safety scandals.

China’s food exports to Japan plunged 30 percent shortly after the poisonings. Japan is the third-largest market for Chinese exporters of fish, dumplings and other processed food.

The new statement on Lu’s detention could not be found on the public security ministry’s Web site Saturday morning, and phones at the ministry rang unanswered.

Associated Press Writer Shino Yuasa in Tokyo contributed to this report.