RIYADH — Inspection teams from the Ministry of Commerce and other government departments busted a warehouse that was used as a factory for commercial fraud in the southern Al-Shifa neighborhood of Riyadh. More than 360,000 illegal products that are meant to market among the consumers were seized from the facility. It was found that the warehouse was used to repackage coffee and nut products by falsifying the country of origin of goods and foodstuffs of unknown origin in order to deceive consumers. The seized items from the warehouse included more than 281,000 bags that did not contain data on the country of origin, 20,000 bags of coffee and 60,000 bags of nuts that did not carry any commercial data showing the specifications, characteristics, and expiry dates of the product, in addition to 50 empty coffee bags bearing well-known brands prepared for packaging purposes, stickers, and about 13 bags, each with 25-kilos of coffee products and nuts of unknown origin. Inspectors from the Ministry of Commerce carried out the raids, in cooperation with the officials of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, Civil Defense, and Al-Shifa Municipality. The officials shut down the facility located inside the car maintenance workshops area in the Al-Shifa neighborhood during late hours. It was found that workers entered the warehouse through side doors after 8:00 pm to work on a daily basis and left the premises before the daybreak. The workers were caught while packing foodstuffs of unknown origin and manufactured materials inside bags after falsifying the country of origin. The Ministry of Commerce summoned those in charge of the facility to slap deterrent penalties against them in accordance with the Anti-Commercial Fraud Law and the Commercial Data Law. The violations committed by those running the warehouse and the workers included lack of a commercial license, poor hygiene, failure of its workers to obtain health certificates, poor food storage, the presence of insects, the use of spoiled oils, the use of rusty utensils.
