喝了网购“减肥咖啡”感到心慌？两高：注意网红瘦身产品潜在风险

Brief (coffeeyo.com): China’s Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate have released a typical case on online food-safety crimes: two vendors who sold “weight-loss coffee” laced with the banned drug sibutramine have been sentenced, a warning about the hidden risks of viral slimming products.

The Beijing News (reporter Chen Lu) reported on September 22 that the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate jointly released a batch of typical cases punishing online food-safety crimes in accordance with the law. Zhang moujing and Ma mou were convicted of selling toxic and harmful food for peddling “weight-loss coffee” illegally adulterated with sibutramine.

The case shows that from November 2021 to August 2024, Zhang moujing, a merchant in Bairin Right Banner, Inner Mongolia, without a food-business license and without verifying her suppliers’ qualification and inspection certificates, contacted six merchants through e-commerce platforms to discuss agency arrangements, then purchased “weight-loss coffee” branded “Blue Coffee” and “Black Coffee” and resold it through social-network platforms and a network of downstream agents, for total sales of more than 170,000 yuan. From 2022 to 2024, the defendant Ma mou, acting as Zhang’s downstream agent, bought “Blue Coffee” and “Black Coffee” and sold it via social platforms for about 17,000 yuan. During sales, Zhang’s suppliers went silent and frequently changed collection accounts; some consumers reported weakness, palpitations, nausea, and sweating after taking the products, and an individual who felt unwell commissioned a test, found sibutramine, and informed the seller. Zhang and Ma kept selling even after learning of this.

The People’s Procuratorate of Bairin Right Banner prosecuted Zhang and Ma for selling toxic and harmful food. The People’s Court of Bairin Right Banner found that the defendants, in violation of national food-safety regulations, sold food they knew contained toxic and harmful non-food raw materials, constituting the crime of selling toxic and harmful food. Zhang’s sales exceeded 100,000 yuan but fell short of 200,000 yuan, and the offending period lasted more than six months, legally qualifying as “other serious circumstances.” Both defendants turned themselves in and pleaded guilty and accepted punishment; the court thus gave Zhang a mitigated punishment and Ma a lighter one. Accordingly, Zhang was sentenced to two years and ten months in prison and fined 350,000 yuan; Ma was sentenced to one year in prison and fined 50,000 yuan. No appeal or protest was filed within the statutory period, and the judgment has taken legal effect.

The two bodies warned that in this case the defendants used online promotion, private negotiation, and electronic payment, making the activity highly covert and easy to shield from supervision. The defendant Zhang leveraged the customer base built by her physical store to promote on social platforms and recruit downstream agents, greatly increasing the difficulty for administrative and judicial organs to gather evidence and creating serious social harm. Judicial authorities therefore remind the public to heed the potential risks of viral slimming products and sharpen their ability to judge online food safety.

Editor: Zhang Qian. Proofreader: Wang Xin.

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