Food Mafia Floods Sudanese Markets with Contaminated Oils and “Pork Indomie”

Investigation: Al-Taj Osman

An investigation by Sudanese Echoes has uncovered shocking facts about the existence of organized, cross-border networks exploiting wartime conditions to flood Sudanese markets with spoiled, expired, and adulterated food products containing banned substances or ingredients of unknown origin. These include oils contaminated with bacteria and Indomie noodles mixed with pork by-products.

Joint reports issued by the Sudanese Organization for Standardization and Metrology, the Consumer Supply Police, and Economic Security, obtained by Sudanese Echoes, revealed that 700 tons of spoiled goods had been confiscated and destroyed and that 10 official cases had been filed during the first quarter of the current year, according to police records.

The reports said the goods had either been looted from warehouses belonging to UN organizations and traders after being spoiled by prolonged storage or imported in adulterated form through the tentacles of food-mafia networks that purchase damaged goods whose expiry dates are nearing from certain Arab and African countries and market them in outlying states at rock-bottom prices, exploiting the wave of soaring inflation.