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When food fraud turns deadly: milk adulteration kills 6 people

In February 2026, six people died and seven more became critically ill after consuming contaminated milk in India. The milk is reported to have come from a processing facility, a “private milk chilling unit”, that was operating without the required permissions. The person who operated the unit was arrested.

The milk was contaminated with toxic ethylene glycol coolant after a leak, according to CNBCTV (India). Propylene glycol, not ethylene glycol, is food-safe and typically used for dairy operations, whereas ethylene glycol is used for non-food industrial applications and in automotive antifreeze.

Propylene glycol is food-safe and typically used for dairy operations, whereas ethylene glycol is used for non-food industrial applications and in automotive antifreeze.

Victims reported tasting an unusual flavour in the milk before they began to experience symptoms of acute poisoning. One media outlet reported the deaths were caused by acute renal failure.

If the allegations published by CNBCTV prove correct (investigations were ongoing at the time of this report), this is a case where a person who perpetrated food fraud – by falsely implying their milk was from a properly licensed operation – has caused multiple deaths.

The milk is reported to have come from a processing facility that was operating without the required permissions. Image: Anita Jankovic/Unsplash.

Important things to know

In India, the word ‘adulteration’ is used to refer to both accidental contamination events and deliberate addition of undeclared materials to food.

The presence of ethylene glycol in the milk appears to be the result of accidental contamination, not intentional adulteration. The unlicensed milk operator would not have wanted to sicken their customers, knowing this would bring unwanted scrutiny.

The food fraud element of this tragic situation is therefore not related to the ‘adulteration’ (contamination) of the milk, but to the deception perpetrated by the milk processor, who was operating “without the required permissions”. A properly licensed operator would not have used the highly toxic industrial coolant ethylene glycol in their refrigeration system.

Suspicious similarities…

In 2023, I wrote about the tragic contamination case(s) that caused 300 deaths of children from contaminated cough syrup in multiple countries, including Gambia, Indonesia and Uzbekistan. The deaths were attributed to the presence of ethylene glycol in the syrup, instead of the inert and safe propylene glycol, which is used as a humectant in medicated syrups.

Indonesian police investigating the cough syrup manufacturer told reporters that a chemical company had misrepresented industrial-grade ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol as pharmaceutical-grade propylene glycol.

The company name and branding of a well-known pharmaceutical supplier were used on the products, presumably without its authorisation. The perpetrators then allegedly supplied the counterfeit and highly toxic ‘Dow Chemical Thailand Pharmaceutical-grade Propylene Glycol’ to local medicine manufacturers via a distributor.

Four men from the medicine manufacturer in Indonesia were jailed, despite their legal representatives blaming the supplier of a contaminated ingredient in the medicine for the deaths, while 21 people who worked in the import, distribution and licensing of imported medicines faced court in Uzbekistan on charges including the sale of substandard medicines, tax evasion, negligence, forgery and bribery.

The Indonesian makers of the fake ‘Propylene Glycol’ and their distributors also faced criminal prosecution. The manufacturer was found at fault for the poisonings in 2024, in a civil case brought by affected families in Indonesia, and ordered to pay compensation to the families of the injured children.

Key learnings

It’s rare for food fraud events to be directly implicated in serious illnesses or deaths. However, people who are willing to cut corners and break food safety laws to make illegal profits – for example, by operating without a licence – put the safety of consumers at risk.

When illnesses and injuries do occur as a result of food fraud, it can lead to the perpetrator getting caught, and this disincentivises obviously unsafe practices by food fraud perpetrators.

In another 2020s case in India, the illnesses and subsequent traceback resulted in the arrest of the unlicensed operator.

If allegations about the nature of the poisonings in India prove correct, that is, if the milk was contaminated with toxic ethylene glycol coolant – coolant that should never be used in a food context – after a leak in an unlicensed chilling system, this will be a rare case of illegal food processing causing consumer deaths.

Main source:

CNBCTV18 India (2026). Andhra milk adulteration case: Six dead, seven people in critical condition; FSSAI seeks report. [online] Available at: https://www.cnbctv18.com/india/andhra-milk-adulteration-case-six-dead-seven-people-in-critical-condition-fssai-seeks-report-ws-l-19857629.htm

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Undercover honey investigators

I previously wrote about how my daughter, who loves honey and eats a lot of it here in Australia, complained that all the honey she tasted while travelling in Europe had no flavour, telling me it tasted like sugar water.

A German news outlet has published a documentary about their investigations into honey fraud in Europe and it certainly aligns with my daughter’s “sugar water” opinion.

While the video begins with all the information we have come to expect from honey fraud stories, such as the differences between various test methods and regulatory standards, things soon get more interesting.

Journalists set up their own fake honey business, visit honey traders and processors with hidden cameras, and even send people to China to collect evidence of fraudulent practices.

“The syrup really passes the NMR test?” asks an undercover investigator of a Chinese syrup supplier. The answer is simple: “Yes”.

The journalists even make their own fake honey using special syrups designed to trick the nuclear magnetic resonance test (NMR) widely used in Europe for honey authentication. And they succeed: a blend of authentic honey and 20% special syrup was identified in the NMR test as authentic. Blends made with ordinary syrups were flagged as inauthentic.

“The math is simple”, an anonymous German honey trader tells them, “If I add 20% syrup to my honey, my margin would almost double. You have no chance against such competitors.”

For English subtitles, click CC on the YouTube display to activate captions, then in Settings choose ‘Subtitles’, then ‘Auto-translate’, then ‘English.

This article was originally published at The Rotten Apple – a weekly newsletter for food professionals

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September food fraud update; trade wars, fruit scares and spuds

The ‘trade war’ between the USA and China is really hotting up, with China having imposed import tariffs of up to 25% on US lobsters and other food products in the previous 2 months.  The presence of tariffs greatly increases the risk of fraudulent cross-border activities; Food Fraud Advisors predicts that the new China tariffs will lead to significantly more food fraud within the Chinese-American trade sector as well as having a knock-on affect on food trade internationally.

There have already been allegations of fraud related to the tariff imposition in the North American lobster market.  Canadian lobsters can be imported to China without incurring the tariffs imposed on lobsters from the United States.  It has been alleged that lobsters grown in the USA are being shipped to Canada, re-labeled as Canadian lobsters then exported to China.  Canadian lobster growers fear damage to the ‘Canada’ brand from these activities.

The strawberry scandal in Australia has hit local consumers, retailers and growers hard.  It started with two consumers in the state of Queensland finding metal needles inside fresh strawberries.  The affected brand and its sister brand from the same grower were pulled from shelves.  Within days another needle-like object was found in strawberries from a different brand in a different state; the fruit source was completely different and the incident was labelled a ‘copycat crime’.  In Australia strawberries are typically sold to consumers in clear clam-shell containers with four air holes in the top surface.  The air holes are large enough to allow access to the fruit inside with a small sharp object like a needle while the strawberries are displayed on a supermarket (grocery store) shelf.  Public response has been confusion; why would anyone want to do such a thing?  Since then, other fruits, including apples and bananas have been similarly affected, again, in what appear to be completely independent occurrences.  The food safety sector in Australia is at a loss as to how to prevent this type of incident; fruit is by necessity displayed and accessible for consumers to touch prior to purchase, leaving it vulnerable to malicious adulteration.

Meanwhile, strawberry growers in Australia, who were already struggling to get good prices for their bumper harvest, have seen demand for their fruit plummet.  Media outlets have published reports about farmers who are dumping tonnes of unwanted fruit because the wholesale price has fallen below the cost of production.

Whole potatoes are generally thought to be at low risk of food fraud because of their relatively low value and because of their easily recognisable form.  However, like all fruit and vegetables, they are at risk of being misrepresented with respect to their geographic origin and their variety.  Growers groups have demanded that government authorities investigate allegations of potato fraud in Ireland, after a successful campaign to encourage consumption of locally-grown Queen potatoes.  It has been alleged that imported potatoes and potatoes of other varieties are being re-labelled as Irish Queen potatoes, providing an economic gain for the perpetrators of this fraud.

 

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Love and other illegal ingredients; food fraud news for November

Fish fraud decreasing?

Great news for Canadians, with a recent ‘citizen science’ survey finding very low levels of fish fraud at the retail level.  The study was organised by SeaChoice with the support of  the University of Guelph Centre for Biodiversity Genomics’ Life Scanner program.  Participants used DNA kits to sample fish from local grocery stores across the country.  In all, 501 samples from 49 retailers and representing 46 species were tested.  Just 1% were found to be fraudulently mis-labelled, while 7% were not labelled according to the proper names defined by Canadian regulations.  These numbers are lower than expected and – we hope – the start of a trend towards better traceability and less fraud in the seafood industry.

Gorgeous, but toxic ‘silver’ sweets

Intricately decorated festival sweets in India have been a well-known food fraud risk for many years; unfortunately they are frequently found to have been coloured with cheap and toxic textile dyes rather than approved food additives.  On the eve of the Diwali festival this year, Indian authorities tested sweets and found they contained non-food colours.  In addition, the beautiful silver gilding on some sweets was in fact made from dangerous aluminium, rather than from silver, which is inert and safe to ingest.

Hot dogs in peril

Hot dog sellers in Belgium are worrying about the price of mustard, after the world’s largest producer of mustard seeds, Canada, reported a very small harvest this year.  It is only half of the previous year and the lowest volumes in 11 years.  This is expected to effect supplies and prices of mustard which will increase the risk of food fraud.

Red, red wine

Chapitalization – the act of adding sugar to the wine making process to boost final alcohol content, is the subject of a recent crackdown by Spanish authorities. Chapitalization is not permitted in Spain, although it is allowed in some wine growing regions elsewhere.

 ¡Ay no: carne de caballo

Despite being one of the best known types of food fraud, we are still finding undeclared horse meat in beef, including recently in Mexico.  Horse meat is not illegal in Mexico, however it is not supposed to be present in beef meat.  A recent study found it at rates of around 10% of ‘beef’ products purchased from public markets, street stalls, butchers shops and taco stands.  Worse still, more than half of the meat samples that contained horse DNA also contained clenbuterol, an illegal growth enhancer.

US FDA: not loving love

The US FDA has ventured into philosophical territory by sending a pubic warning letter to the owners of a food manufacturer in Massachusetts for mis-branding their granola by declaring that it contains love.  According to the FDA, “Love is not a common or usual name of an ingredient, and is considered to be intervening material because it is not part of the common or usual name of the ingredient.” Oh FDA, you heart-breakers!

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Latest news in food fraud; tasty tapirs, ‘unripe’ honey and toxic eggs

Honey production increased by a phenomenal 88% in China between 2000 and 2014, despite an increase in the number of beehives by 21% during the same period.  This is said to be due to the harvesting of ‘unripe’ honey: the honey is removed from hives while still very watery, then it is artificially dried.   China is the world’s biggest honey producer and provides a significant proportion of Europe’s honey.

Meanwhile, a number of European countries have increased their honey exports at about the same rate as they have increased their imports from China, while there have been no increases in local production. It is alleged that the honey is being fraudulently re-labelled as European-grown honey when it originated in China. Read more about unripe honey and the European honey market here.

Contaminated eggs are being recalled and dumped by their millions in Europe and beyond

 

The biggest news in Europe in recent weeks has been the growing scandal around the discovery of a toxic pesticide in eggs.  The pesticide fipronil is commonly used to control lice and ticks on animals, however it is not allowed to be used in food production chains, including within poultry barns.  Eggs in more than 40 countries across Europe and beyond have been found to contain traces of the pesticide.  Millions of eggs have been recalled and dumped.  It is alleged that the source of the contamination can be traced back to a poultry barn cleaning company that used undeclared pesticide when treating barns in The Netherlands.  Two men from the company are being held on suspicion of endangering public health.  Read more about the egg scandal here.

Organic and eco-labelled foods are at very high risk of food fraud and as more cases of fraud in these sectors are uncovered there is a risk to consumer trust in sustainable foods according to Ecovia Intelligence.

Trust in sustainable foods is under threat from food fraud.

 

There has been depressing news from Canada this month, with undeclared meat species found in a wide selection of meat products.  Twenty percent of sampled products from the government-commissioned survey contained meat that wasn’t on the label, in quantities that could not be attributed to carry-over from product changeovers.  Seven of twenty seven beef sausages contained pork, one of thirty-eight pork sausages contained horse and one third of tested ‘turkey’ sausages contained nothing but chicken.

The citizens of Venezuela have been warned to be wary of meat from dubious sources, after zoo animals were stolen from Zulia Metropolitan Zoological Park in the city of Maracaibo. Ten species, including buffalo and tapirs, have gone missing from the zoo in recent weeks as the population suffers from serious food shortages.

Consumer trust in food producers and processed food is alarming low in the United Kingdom, reports NFU Mutual.  Almost three quarters of those surveyed believe food fraud is a widespread problem in the UK.

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