By KUNA
Tokyo : Japanese police said Tuesday it will work together with China’s police over the investigation of the Chinese-made toxic dumplings that have sickened nearly 1,200 people in Japan and look into the possibility of intentional poisoning.
“We must cooperate with the Chinese side, as the problem straddles both countries,” Tsuyoshi Yoneda, head of criminal investigations for the National Police Agency, said at an investigative meeting in Tokyo. “It is a serious case which threatens our country’s food safety, and we should pull together our resources across the nation,” Yoneda stressed.
It is still unknown how the highly toxic organophosphate pesticide, called methamidophos, got into the meat dumplings, which were made by Tianyang Food in China’s northern province of Heibei.
However, referring to small holes on some packages, the Japanese authorities said there is a possibility that the dumplings were intentionally poisoned during the production and transportation process in China.
Methamidophos has often been used in China as a pesticide but is banned in Japan.
Meanwhile, Tokyo also dispatched a fact-finding mission to China, where the two sides confirmed cooperation on the case earlier in the day.