Vietnam busts factory that washed and resold used condoms
- A tip-off led police and inspectors to a factory near Ho Chi Minh City, where they found over 300,000 condoms being cleaned to sell as new
- A woman arrested at the scene said the used contraceptives were boiled in water, dried, reshaped on a wooden phallus, and then repackaged
Following a tip from a local resident, market inspectors raided a factory near Ho Chi Minh City in the southern province of Binh Duong over the weekend and found used condoms being repacked for sale at the market.
Footage broadcast by Vietnam Television (VTV) showed dozens of large bags containing the used contraceptives scattered across the floor of a warehouse.
Police said the bags weighed over 360kg (794lbs), equivalent to at least 345,000 condoms, according to VTV.
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A market inspector said the owner of the factory, a 34-year-old woman, confessed that they bought the used condoms from a man in the province.
A woman detained during the raid said they received a “monthly input of used condoms from an unknown person”, state newspaper Tuoi Tre reported.
She told police that the used prophylactics were first boiled in water then dried and reshaped on a wooden phallus before being repackaged and resold.
The detained woman said she had received $0.17 for every kilogram of recycled condoms she produced.
Neither she nor the owner of the factory were available for comment.
VTV said it was not clear how many of the recycled condoms had already been sold.
The state newspaper said Vietnamese police will investigate the facility and track down others involved in the operation. A call to police for comment was not answered on Thursday.
The newspaper quoted a health official as saying the recycled condoms posed an extreme health risk to users.
