Rice transported from Vietnam and seized by Osaka Customs is seen in the city of Osaka, Aug. 8, 2025. Small bugs were visible inside the bags. (Mainichi/Chinatsu Ide)
OSAKA — A married couple in Osaka Prefecture who have been indicted for attempting to smuggle rice into Japan from Vietnam have now also been referred to prosecutors over allegations they fraudulently sold foreign rice as Japanese, Osaka Prefectural Police announced Dec. 1.
Amid rising domestic rice prices due to shortages, the couple — a Vietnamese woman who runs the food import-export company Frechi in the city of Higashiosaka and her Japanese husband — allegedly sold nearly 300 metric tons of mislabeled rice, generating over 100 million yen (about $642,000) in sales.
The couple, company owner Tran Thi Thu Huyen, 37, and her 47-year-old self-employed husband Tomoyuki Takeshige, were previously arrested and indicted in October for allegedly attempting to smuggle approximately 45 tons of rice in from Vietnam disguised as mung beans.
The additional charges specifically allege that from late March to mid-September, the couple conspired with unidentified individuals in Vietnam to sell about 8 tons of illegally imported foreign rice as domestic rice to four Vietnamese-related food stores in Aichi, Hyogo and Yamanashi prefectures, defrauding them of approximately 4.98 million yen (around $32,000).
The police also included a violation of the rice traceability law for falsifying origin information in the new charges.
Rice seized by Osaka Customs is seen at the container inspection center of Osaka Customs’ Nanko Sub-Branch Customs in the city of Osaka, Aug. 8, 2025. The rice was found packed in a total of 2,272 cardboard boxes inside two containers transported by a cargo ship. (Mainichi/Chinatsu Ide)
Both suspects have admitted to the allegations, according to police. Tran reportedly explained to investigators, “Rice prices in Japan were rising. By purchasing rice cheaply in Vietnam and selling it in Japan, we made a profit.”
According to the prefectural police’s living environment division, during investigations into Customs Act violation cases, suspicions emerged that Tran’s company had smuggled more than 500 tons of rice from Vietnam between February and June this year. On paper, all imports were brought into Japan as “mung beans.”
Investigations into the distribution channels confirmed that the rice was marketed to wholesalers as “10 kilograms of Japanese rice for 5,800 yen (about $37). This is not blended with foreign rice.”
A forensic examination by a specialized agency concluded that the rice sold was “unlikely to be of domestic origin.”
The couple is suspected of selling rice falsely labeled as domestically produced to about 300 businesses across 30 prefectures, with estimated sales reaching approximately 130 million yen (roughly $835,000).
(Japanese original by Chinatsu Ide, Osaka City News Department)
AloJapan.com