The smuggling of tainted honey

"Honey Laundering" is the catchy title of a series of articles at Seattlepi.com detailing the international grey market for honey - contamination, transshipping, relabelling. Herewith some excerpts:

In the U.S., where bee colonies are dying off and demand for imported honey is soaring, traders of the thick amber liquid are resorting to elaborate schemes to dodge tariffs and health safeguards in order to dump cheap honey on the market, a five-month Seattle P-I investigation has found.

The business is plagued by foreign hucksters and shady importers who rip off conscientious U.S. packers with honey diluted with sugar water or corn syrup -- or worse, tainted with pesticides or antibiotics...

In March 2007, U.S. officials... found two other antibiotics -- iprofloxacin and Enrofloxacin -- in honey and blends of honey syrup that originated from China. Last month, FDA also warned that corn or cane sugar may be adulterated -- loaded with honey to increase its bulk or weight and market value...

Even analyzing samples of honey before making a purchase -- for quality and authenticity-- is no longer a guarantee against running afoul of the law. "Too often what comes in is not what was in the sample we tested earlier."

...tests have found chloramphenicol-laced honey, he said. "It's still out there, yeah. ... We find it once a month or so." The tainted honey is returned to the supplier, said Huser, who concedes it could find its way back into the pipeline...

Countries that have few if any commercial beekeepers, such as Singapore, are now exporting significant quantities of honey... And other countries that locally produce mostly dark, strong-tasting honey, such as India, Vietnam and South Korea, are shipping tons of the more marketable white honey.

Much more in the long investigative articles at the links. Found at Metafilter.