A 50-year-old woman has been arrested in connection with a food tampering scare in Australia that saw scores of people, including a 7-year-old girl, bite into store-bought strawberries with needles inside, police said Sunday.
Former strawberry farm supervisor My Ut Trinh has been charged with seven counts of contamination of goods with intent to cause economic loss. She would face up to 10 years in jail if convicted. Trinh was working at the Berrylicious strawberry farm near Caboolture, north of Brisbane, when she allegedly inserted needles into the fruit between Sept. 2 and 5.
While no injuries were reported, the contamination sparked a nationwide crisis that led the government to increase the penalties for those who sabotage food products and to offer a reward of roughly $70,000 for anyone with information about the culprit.
It also sent panic across the country’s nearly $150 million strawberry industry as supermarkets pulled the fruit from their shelves and some growers chose to dump their product at the peak of the season. One strawberry farm even installed a metal detector to reassure customers.
More than 200 alleged incidents of needles found in strawberries were reported in September across the country, officials said, while false reports of fruit tampering spread on social media. Police investigation into the broader crisis is continuing.
The Queensland Strawberry Grocers Association, which has long suspected that a disgruntled ex-employee is the saboteur, said in a statement that while it is pleased that someone has been arrested, it finds it "disconcerting" that the hundreds of "copycats or false reports" have not been punished.
"There was never an issue with the quality, integrity and freshness of local grown strawberries," it said in a statement. "It was a crisis driven by social media and the only real victims were the strawberry growers, and to some extent other Australian fruit growers and exporters."
