(From CPORising.com, a media site written for and about Chief Procurement Officers and other supply management executives)

Shortly after the United States began imposing duties on Chinese honey, Australia discovered and stopped a series of shipments of honey that were imported from Singapore (an island with no honey-production capabilities at the time) and headed to the U.S. The Australian investigation showed that the honey had originated in China and had been laundered (or re-routed) through Singapore.

Over the next few years, there was a widely-held view in the industry that certain US importers of were guilty of “honey laundering” and knowingly re-routed Chinese-produced honey through other countries to avoid tariffs. These suspicions were validated last year when the U.S. Justice Department indicted 15 people and six companies spanning from Asia to Germany and the U.S. for their roles in a honey laundering scheme that avoided nearly $80 million in anti-dumping duties and knowingly placed honey that was tainted with dangerous antibiotics into the U.S. food supply.

Yes, honey laundering is not just a free trade issue, it is one of supply risk and public safety; with roughly 73 million pounds of imported honey sold in grocery stores each year and another 135+ million pounds of imported honey used in other products, this issue has potentially huge ramifications.

The practices of those arrested in the honey cartel were deceitful, despicable and clearly unlawful and the U.S. government should be commended for bringing forward these indictments. Unfortunately, according to many industry experts, the arrests have not been an effective deterrent to other laundering schemes and the US food supply continues to face serious potential risks from contaminated honey.

(Read more of this article at http://cporising.com/2011/08/16/honey-laundering/.)