NAGOYA, Japan -- Police plan to search Thursday an agricultural product wholesaler in Aichi Prefecture and other companies that cooperated with it on suspicion they falsely la-beled and sold bamboo shoots farmed in China as having been grown in Japan, sources close to the matter said Wednesday.
The move came after the agriculture ministry ordered Takenokoya and four other compa-nies in December to address such acts, which included attaching to products photographs of fake "farmers" they say grew the bamboo shoots.
The farmers in the photos are simply workers of the companies that had connections with Takenokoya, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.
According to the police, Takenokoya started sending bamboo shoots farmed in China to the four companies from 2003 and told them to change the packages.
Although the amount of bamboo shoots grown in Japan that were included in the packages was small, the products were labeled as being from Kumamoto Prefecture and elsewhere in Japan and sold in supermarkets in Kanto, Hokkaido and other areas.
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The four other companies were aware that they were involved in false labeling, the police said.
The other companies the police plan to search include those based in Niigata, Kyoto, Fu-kuoka and Kumamoto prefectures, the sources said.
