Making fake milk to sell online, earning 1.5 billion per month

Vu Thanh Cong, 36 years old, residing in District 12, Ho Chi Minh City, and seven related people have just been detained to clarify the act of "producing and trading in counterfeit goods such as food, foodstuffs, and food additives" due to their involvement in a large-scale fake milk case.

Information provided by Binh Duong Provincial Police on January 21.

This is the result of a special project, coordinated between the Department of Investigation Police on Crimes of Corruption, Economy, Smuggling, and Environment (called Economic Police) of Binh Duong Province Police and the Economic Police of Ho Chi Minh City Police, along with related units.

The amount of fake milk discovered and temporarily seized was large, estimated to be worth up to 14.5 billion VND. The authorities temporarily seized more than 7,500 cans of various types of finished powdered milk and 200 packages containing about 150,000 cans of milk of famous brands.

Four locations of Cong’s counterfeit production and trading were simultaneously inspected by the police. Many machines and equipment for counterfeit production were also temporarily seized.

Cong admitted to renting a factory on Lo O Street, Binh An Ward, Di An City, Binh Duong Province (bordering Ho Chi Minh City) to produce counterfeit goods.

The company hired workers to counterfeit famous brand milk powder. These are milk brands imported from abroad, not yet produced in Vietnam.

Notably, this fake milk was publicly distributed by Cong through online sales channels, hiring shippers to deliver the goods.

In just a short period of time from November 24, 2023 to now, Cong has illegally profited 3 billion VND.

To avoid being tracked, Cong changed his production location once a month but was still caught red-handed by the authorities.