For fake organic products in the United States can be severely punished - up to 10 years in prison. This was shown by farmers, who for years have been selling customers supposedly organic grain, but in reality - ordinary.
In the United States, the trial ended on the fifth member of a group of farmers - schemers who for several years passed off ordinary grain as organic. (The rest were previously convicted). Accordingly, they earned good money, much more than if they were just selling grain. It is believed that this was the largest scandal in US history with the alleged sale of organic grain. KV wrote about this.
According to the profile of the American publication World Grain, the fifth farmer from the criminal group John Barton (Missouri) received a prison term of about two years for his participation in the fraud (to be exact, then 22 months). In addition to the prison term, the farmer must return more than 1 million dollars obtained by criminal means, and also pay a fine of 100 thousand dollars.
The leader of the criminal group, Randy Constant, received more than 10 years in prison, and in the course of illegal activities, grain was sold for 142 million dollars, most of which was not organic at all. By the way, after the sentencing R. Constant committed suicide in his hometown in Missouri.
The prosecutor's office said that Barton, selling his grain to Constant, knew that he would sell it as organic. In addition, Barton himself worked for Constant and leased land from him. Barton repeatedly used fertilizers and various chemicals, knowing that this is prohibited on organic fields. It was found that Barton raised, and also sold for Constant grain for $ 5 million. In total, as already mentioned, the volume of grain sales under the fraud of Constant amounted to 142 million dollars. Most of these sales are supposedly organic products.
Three more farmers had previously received prison sentences from 3 months to 2 years. (Pity the veteran of the Vietnam War, who is 71 years old). However, everyone should return $ 1 million received from participating in a fraud.