The fireworks in the world are the most soothing to the hearts of mortals. Many people love this quote because it speaks to our love for life from the bottom of our hearts. Modern fireworks people are inseparable from gas stoves, liquefied gas and other gas products, but some fire accidents that have occurred in recent years have made the public feel uneasy about the safety and use of gas products. Gas product fire accidents often bring serious losses and impacts to people's lives and property and social stability, and the relevant law enforcement departments have repeatedly cracked down and strictly prevented, but in order to obtain illegal profits, there will still be some lawbreakers who take risks. So what are the potential safety hazards of these fake and shoddy products, and how should the public prevent them?
In October last year, an electrical repair shop in Chongqing's Dadukou district welcomed several strangers who came to negotiate the business of household gas stoves.
The owner Xiong carefully observed this household gas stove, whether it is the brand name or the advertising slogan, it is very similar to a well-known brand, but the price is only one-tenth of the brand stove. Xiong believed that this would be a good business to make money, so he began to sell household gas stoves under the banner of trade-in according to the words taught by strangers.
The two parties agreed to sell first and pay later, so that Xiong would not bear any economic losses, so he thought he had encountered a good business. However, before this household gas stove could be sold, it attracted the attention of market regulators.
Gong Yu, director of the Market Supervision and Management Institute of Jumping Town, Dadukou District, Chongqing: During the inspection process, it was found that the trademark of this stove was similar to a well-known brand in the mainland, and its outer packaging did not have the 3C certificate of our national compulsory certification.
In the interview, the reporter learned that in order to protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, as early as October 2019, the mainland included household gas stoves in the CCC certification management catalog.
Du Yang, Director of the Quality Supervision Department of Chongqing Municipal Administration for Market Regulation: The products in the compulsory product certification catalogue shall not be sold out of the factory without compulsory product certification, otherwise it is an illegal act.
The two indicators of "cottage stove" were unqualified
The market regulators immediately seized the gas stove in Xiong's store and sent it to an authoritative institution for testing. The results showed that the CO concentration and heat load in the dry flue gas did not meet the national standards and were judged to be unqualified products.
As the investigation deepened, law enforcement officers found that such outlets selling household gas stoves from unknown sources were not the only ones in Chongqing, but also in nearby Luzhou, Yibin and other places in Sichuan.
Wan Song, Captain of the Second Brigade of the Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Detachment of the Chongqing Dadukou District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau: The amount involved in the case is very large, and it is a wandering crime. Report the case to the Dadukou District Public Security Bureau for joint discussion.
Under the investigation of the police, Zhao, who supplied Xiong, surfaced. Zhao specializes in wholesale and retail of household gas stoves in Chongqing, Sichuan and other places. He and others not only solicited business at some electrical repair stations in urban areas, but also gathered a number of relatives from his fellow villagers to pretend to be maintenance personnel of gas companies and sell their products door-to-door in remote towns or rural areas.
Shu Leijie, deputy head of the Food and Drug Ring Detachment of the Dadukou District Bureau of the Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau: Wearing the kind of gas company work clothes, pretending to be a maintenance and maintenance personnel, he went into the house to carry out the so-called maintenance of the resident, and the maintenance of the gas stove to sell the gas stove he brought.
The investigation found that Zhao and his accomplices also induced villagers to buy so-called designated brand products at a price of 200 to 300 yuan per unit under the guise of household appliances going to the countryside, policy subsidies, and price concessions.
Zeng, who provided Zhao with a fake gas stove, is the owner of a counterfeiting den in Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province. After determining the entire production and sales network, the police recently carried out a unified network in Chongqing, Sichuan, Guangdong and other places to close the gang selling counterfeit gas stoves.
Tao Jiandong, deputy head of the anti-counterfeiting team of the Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau: 21 criminal suspects were arrested, 11 dens of production, storage and sales were destroyed, and more than 55,000 sets of various counterfeit trademarks, logos and packaging materials were seized on the spot, and the amount involved in the entire case was more than 10 million yuan.
Zeng's counterfeiting den is located in a rented house of about 500 square meters, and the production equipment is extremely simple.
Zeng told reporters that he originally did waste recycling, and only began to switch to selling commercial gas stoves at the end of 2022. With the increase in orders, we began to lease a factory to assemble the gas stove by ourselves.
In order to make more profits, Zeng made full use of waste packaging boxes recycled from other gas stove manufacturers, installed his own products, and sold them as brands that had been printed on these boxes.
If it can be ignited, it will leave the factory Inferior gas stoves have major safety hazards
In order to reduce production costs, Zeng assembled a gas stove, and the only testing equipment was a fire test table.
Zhao Tiancan, police officer of the Food and Drug Ring Detachment of the Dadukou District Bureau of the Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau: This is the bottom shell at the lower end, and the assembly begins, and then this whole simple workbench is his production line. There is a test fire bench here, which is to connect their gas to test later, and achieve a purpose, whether it can be ignited. He only needs to be able to ignite a fire to sell, and nothing else.
As long as it can be lit on fire, it will be labeled as qualified and sold out of the factory, and all factory inspection items stipulated by the mandatory standards of other countries will be ignored. The police confirmed that the gas stove assembled by Zeng cost only a few dozen yuan each, and then pretended to be brand products such as Mrs. Hao and Oppai, and wholesaled them to Zhao and others at a price of about 100 yuan each.
Shu Leijie, deputy head of the Food and Drug Ring Detachment of the Dadukou District Bureau of the Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau: In the end, the price sold by the salesperson to ordinary consumers ranged from 200 to 300 yuan. The profit is quite high.
Since the price is much lower than the market price of normal products, Zeng's products sell very well.
Liu Chuan, police officer of the Food and Drug Ring Detachment of the Dadukou District Bureau of the Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau: Since the establishment of the factory, Zeng has produced a total of about 16,700 fake and shoddy gas stoves, and more than 15,000 have all gone into the hands of consumers.
What is the quality of the gas stove assembled by Zeng? The Chongqing police randomly selected 14 units and sent them to the testing agency for testing, and the results showed that all 14 samples were unqualified. Among them, the reason for the failure of the flameout protection device project is particularly surprising.
Tang Renjie, Electrical Center, Chongqing Institute of Metrology and Quality Inspection: Usually you will see two needles on the gas stove, one of the needles, for example, this is an electric ignition device, and this slightly protruding point is a flame-out protection device.
According to the inspectors, the complete flame-out protection device, in addition to the induction needle that ordinary consumers can see, also has two key components: the invisible wire and the end solenoid valve installed under the stove. When the gas stove goes out unexpectedly, the signal collected by the sensor needle is transmitted to the solenoid valve through the wire, so that it automatically cuts off the gas within 60 seconds to prevent leakage and accidents. However, the reporter saw that when the inspectors simulated an accidental flameout for 60 seconds, the gas flowmeter of this sample was still walking.
Huang Jingxi, Electrical Center, Chongqing Institute of Metrology and Quality Inspection: It shows that it is still continuously supplying gas, and if it leaks for a certain period of time, it may cause an explosion or cause poisoning.
The flame-out protection device must be intact in order to be effective. The gas stove still leaks gas 60 seconds after the ignition is turned off, and the problem lies precisely in the lack of key components of the flame-out protection device.
Tang Renjie, Electrical Center, Chongqing Institute of Metrology and Quality Inspection: Here we can see that this line has only one head, and there is no correct connection line underneath, so it does not work.
There is only an induction needle visible to the consumer, and there are no wires and solenoid valves. The reporter learned in the interview that this kind of fake flame-out protection device is useless and has no effect at all, and such a product, Zeng and Zhao have produced and sold at least 1,300 units.
Criminal suspect Zeng: We normally take 11 pieces of 5 for a valve body, and if there is no valve body for extinguishing protection, we take 4 pieces of 8.
Zeng confessed that although he understood that the flame-out protection device was very important to the safety of the user, in order to save more than 6 yuan in the cost of accessories and earn more profits, he still colluded with the dealer Zhao and others to mix fake flame-out protection device products when selling. At present, there are more than 15,000 fake and shoddy gas stoves sold by Zeng to consumers, and it is unknown how many of them are installed with fake flame-out protection devices. In order to protect the safety of consumers' lives and property, recalling these counterfeit and shoddy products as soon as possible has become a top priority for law enforcement agencies.
In order to save a few dollars, even key safety components such as flame-out protection devices are cut corners, if consumers buy such shoddy gas stoves, once they accidentally overflow and extinguish the fire when boiling water or soup, and there is no one to guard it, the gas will continue to come out, which is very likely to lead to fire or gas poisoning, or lead to deflagration, causing consumers to burn or even die. Although the relevant law enforcement departments have strengthened law enforcement, the reporter found in the interview that in addition to the production of fake and shoddy gas stoves, there are also adulteration and counterfeiting of liquefied petroleum gas that we usually use for cooking.
The Market Supervision Bureau of Bengbu City, Anhui Province received a report from the masses that Zhang, the actual operator of the Yongshuai Gas Supply Station in Hetao Town, Huaiyuan County, and the Yuchun Liquefied Gas Filling Station in Huaiyuan County, had been adding dimethyl ether to liquefied petroleum gas for a long time to make illegal profits.
Dimethyl ether is mixed into liquefied petroleum gas, which will seriously corrode the cylinder sealing ring glue, resulting in gas leakage, fire, explosion and other serious safety hazards. After receiving the report, the market supervision department of Bengbu City began to investigate the two liquefied gas filling stations operated by Zhang in Hetao Town and Changfen Town, Huaiyuan County, Bengbu City.
Zhu Liguang, Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Detachment of Market Supervision in Bengbu City, Anhui Province: The filled liquefied gas was sampled and sent for inspection at intervals, and the results were found that two batches of liquefied petroleum gas dimethyl ether components exceeded the standard in the samples submitted for inspection.
After basically confirming the fact that Zhang was suspected of illegally adding dimethyl ether, the market supervision department of Bengbu City and the police formed a joint task force to continue the investigation. After more than two months of investigation, law enforcement officers identified more than 30 secondary and tertiary distribution points in Wuhe County, Huaiyuan County, Fengyang County, Guzhen County and Huainan City in Anhui Province.
Hu Jinfeng, Food and Drug Environmental Knowledge Crime Investigation Detachment of the Public Security Bureau of Bengbu City, Anhui Province: We dispatched more than 80 police forces, divided into 11 groups, to arrest each of the established targets.
The reporter saw that at one of the sites investigated, there were still 30 tons of shoddy liquefied petroleum gas in the storage tanks that had been mixed for sale, and a large amount of finished dimethyl ether that had just been purchased from Fuyang had not yet had time to be adulterated. At another site, workers are preparing to illegally mix more than 50 tons of dimethyl ether into liquefied petroleum gas.
The LPG, which was about to be sold to consumers, was then sampled and sent to an authoritative institution for testing, and the results showed that all 11 batches of samples sent for testing exceeded the standard of dimethyl ether.
Zhao Hanxu, Deputy Minister of the Coal Chemical Industry Department of the National Coal Chemical Product Quality Inspection and Testing Center (Anhui): Under normal circumstances, dimethyl ether should be a straight baseline, but in this batch of sample testing, the characteristic peak of dimethyl ether was found, and the peak area is relatively large, indicating that the content of dimethyl ether is very high.
The reporter noticed that among the samples submitted for testing, only one batch of dimethyl ether content was less than 10%, and the remaining 10 batches had the highest dimethyl ether content of 81.24%, and the least was 16.51%.
The police confirmed that since 2021, the criminal suspect Zhang has produced and sold liquefied petroleum gas adulterated with dimethyl ether, and the amount involved in the case is as high as more than 1,400 yuan.
Zhu Liguang, Bengbu City, Anhui Province, Market Supervision Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Detachment: This kind of bottled liquefied gas is mainly sold in rural areas where the empty nest elderly and left-behind children are the majority, that is, where natural gas does not reach.
The reporter learned that the criminal suspect Zhang's behavior not only violated the "Product Quality Law of the People's Republic of China", but also violated the crime of producing and selling fake and shoddy products stipulated in the "Criminal Law" of the mainland.
High profits and difficult regulation have led to frequent cases of this kind
Under the high-pressure situation of law enforcement to crack down on such crimes, why would anyone still commit crimes against the wind? The reporter's investigation learned that illegal profiteering is the fundamental purpose of Zhang's addition of dimethyl ether to liquefied petroleum gas.
Zhu Liguang, Bengbu City, Anhui Province, Market Supervision Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Detachment: Normally, the price of dimethyl ether is lower than the normal price difference of liquefied petroleum gas, and in the long run, most of the price difference will be about 1,000 yuan, and even nearly 2,000 yuan when it is higher.
The price difference of 1,000 to 2,000 yuan per ton makes Zhang not only profitable, but also uses the price advantage to seize or even monopolize the market.
Professionals told reporters that dimethyl ether itself is a combustible gas, and after being added to liquefied petroleum gas, ordinary consumers can't find it at all, even if it is a market supervision department, it is very difficult to investigate and deal with it, which is another reason why Zhang dares to take risks. Due to the preparation for the inspection, in the first investigation after receiving the consumer report, the market regulator took 4 samples from Zhang's liquefied gas filling station, and the results were all qualified.
Zhu Liguang, Bengbu City, Anhui Province, Market Supervision Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Detachment: You are like the liquefied gas filling station in Hetao Town, it has four tanks, that is, there will be a connection between each tank, and there are switches in the connection, and there are many combinations, that is, if you are technically unable to distinguish the gas intake of the pipe valve of this tank, it is difficult to find. For example, if I specify the gas of the No. 1 tank to be filled, it may be possible for you to fill it with the gas of the No. 2 tank, and if the gas in the No. 2 tank is liquefied gas, no matter how you pump it, you can't extract such a gas with dimethyl ether added.
Illegal operators have a strong means of evading supervision, which virtually increases the difficulty of law enforcement and supervision.
In order to protect the safety of people's lives and property, this major case involving 4 provinces across the country and examining and prosecuting 51 people suspected of producing and selling substandard liquefied petroleum gas was finally successfully investigated under the supervision of the State Administration for Market Regulation.
Nan Jun, deputy director of the Law Enforcement and Inspection Bureau of the State Administration for Market Regulation: Through the connection of executions, all 51 parties involved in the case were reviewed and prosecuted, and a new black den of illegally added dimethyl ether was destroyed, and compulsory measures were taken against 3 people on the spot.
According to the person in charge, gas products are not only related to the safety of people's lives and property, but also to social stability, so the State Administration for Market Regulation has specially deployed a special rectification action for urban gas safety from August 2023.
Nan Jun, deputy director of the Law Enforcement and Inspection Bureau of the State Administration for Market Regulation: Effectively strengthen the implementation of gas safety supervision and law enforcement responsibilities. Since the beginning of the special operation, a total of 6,101 cases of substandard gas appliances and 237 cases of illegal addition of dimethyl ether have been filed and investigated across the country, and 54 cases have been transferred to judicial organs.
Counterfeit and shoddy gas stoves not only affect the use of the effect, but also may pose a serious threat to human health and life safety, consumers should remember not to be cheap, in the purchase of gas stoves to choose products that meet national standards. For liquefied gas doped with dimethyl ether, it is indeed difficult for consumers to identify, there are great potential safety hazards, and it is more necessary for law enforcement departments to strike with an iron fist and strengthen supervision from the source of production. For every family that uses LPG, the quality of gas products is related to life and happiness, and also maintains the stability and harmony of society. The increasing difficulty of supervision is undoubtedly an examination question in front of the regulatory authorities, and it also poses new challenges to enhance the public's awareness and ability to prevent and resolve gas safety risks.
Source: CCTV News