Selling expired food brings four-month sentence

Workers at restaurant-supply company relabeled and repackaged goods that were unfit for consumption, prosecutors say.

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DUBAI // Employees of a food-supply company that provides five-star hotels and popular restaurants in Dubai with frozen, fresh and dry products will spend four months in prison on charges of selling expired food.

The five men – an Indian, TL, 42, a partner in the company; his compatriots AB, 35, an assistant warehouse supervisor; JV, 39, a security guard; RT, 39, a laborer; and a Bangladeshi, MP, 24, also a laborer – have been convicted of defrauding foodstuff intended for human consumption, forging food labels and possession of food products unfit for human consumption by the Dubai Court of Misdemeanours.

TL was fined Dh1,000 for failing to report a deportee and Dh20,000 for operating outside a free zone area without a license.

The defendants all denied the charges at their first hearing, on June 23, 2010.

According to prosecution records, the men forged expired food by replacing the labels showing they were expired. They also repackaged expired food and foods that were fermented and contained bacteria.

The crime was discovered by a Dubai Municipality food inspection team looking into the company’s warehouse in Jebel Ali. Members of the team referred the case to Jebel Ali police after discovering the violations.

The court also ordered the shutdown of the company for one month and the confiscation of the expired foodstuffs.

salamir@thenational.ae