Honey Laundering

As always, when people get addicted to the sweet stuff, the criminals end up profiting. The mysterious collapse of bee colonies around the United States has increased the demand for foreign honey. A five-month investigation by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reveals that Chinese firms are increasingly exploiting that demand by smuggling in diluted and sometimes contaminated honey. The FDA is cracking down on honey launderers amid fears that dangerously contaminated honey could harm consumers. But the article concludes that oversight is still rare. "There's more crooks than ever, and it has become a real nasty business out there," said the spokeswoman for an international group formed to fight Chinese honey laundering. "They gamble and very, very few—almost none—get caught. So they keep corrupting the system."