The luxurious Kobe beef that has been offered in Vietnam in the past few years has in fact been illegally imported without passing any quarantine check, officials said.

Vu Ngoc Anh, deputy head of the General Customs Department, told Nguoi Lao Dong Newspaper that local customers had been duped into thinking in that they had consumed the real Kobe beef.

Anh said importers had declared with customs authorities that their products were just ordinary beef temporarily imported to be re-exported instead of Kobe beef to pass customs clearance.

The meat is then sold to restaurants which claim it is Kobe beef to deceive customers, Anh said.

“What has been served to customers is probably imported from New Zealand.”

Meanwhile, Hoang Van Nam, head of the Department of Animal Health, told VnExpress Newswire that the real origin of the so-called Kobe beef was yet to be identified.

Nam said the meat could be authentic Kobe beef that had been illegally imported to Vietnam via a third country.

“The beef has to pass customs clearance and quarantine tests to be qualified to enter Vietnam, but the Department of Animal Health has never done such procedures with Kobe beef,” Nam affirmed.

Nam said that there could be a smuggling ring which faked documents to export Kobe beef from Japan to Vietnam.

He said Japanese animal health authorities had recently shown his department legal documents concerning Kobe beef imports that had allegedly been approved by their Vietnamese counterparts.
“But these are all fake papers,” Nam said.

Nam said the documents were sent under the name of the Department of Animal Health, but was signed by “Hoang Van Nam – Minister of Animal Health of Vietnam,” and sealed by Animal Health Agency Zone 2.

But there is no agency called the Ministry of Animal Health in Vietnam.

The Department of Animal Health has transferred these fake documents provided to the police for further investigation.

The Hanoi Market Management Agency last week inspected restaurants that offer Kobe beef dishes and found all of the meat had been illegally imported.

The agency ordered these restaurants to stop serving these dishes.

HCMC market management authorities have also announced that they would carry out similar inspections.

Source: Tuoi tre