The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is reporting on a potential problem with Similac, a best-selling baby formula:

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Abbott Nutrition, makers of Similac brand infant formula, are advising consumers across Canada to check 900-gram Similac Advance Step 2 powdered infant-formula cans for a false, over-stickered lot number and expiration date. The affected product is known to have been supplied by an unauthorized distributor to a liquidation outlet in Ontario. CFIA warns that it may also have been sold at other liquidation outlets nationwide, or through other retailers. Consumers are asked to check the bottom of the formula cans. On correctly labelled cans, the expiration date and lot number are printed directly onto the bottom of the cans in ink. There is no sticker. There have been no reported illnesses associated with the consumption of the product, and correctly labelled Similac Advance Step 2 has not been affected. Consumers who have purchased the over-stickered product are asked to contact Abbott Consumer Relations for return information at 1-800-699-9948.

You can visit the CFIA website and see for yourself pictures of legitimately labelled cans, and the falsified labels.

Who would think to fake baby formula or play with the expiry dates? Apparently, this sort of thing has been going on for a long time. Here is a report from 1995 concerning a similar scam using Similac:

As if Ross Laboratories, Columbus, OH, didn't have enough trouble with fake 16-oz metal cans of powdered Similac infant formula in California (see PW, March '95, p. 8), it appears the product is a nationwide target. Not long after the fake product was discovered in California stores, a warehouse in Lexington, KY, contained powdered formula with both counterfeit labels and cases for Ross and other makers.

Now there's another scam: the Food & Drug Administration has discovered liquid Similac With Iron "ready to feed" in 8-oz plastic cans with counterfeit paper labels and a fictitious code number of OCT 96 L5 SI 89635. Genuine Similac labels use a metallized plastic substrate, not paper. The misbranded products are sold in six-packs. These containers have been found in at least 18 states from Alaska to Florida. Information gathered by FDA indicates that Ross' Similac and Enfamil products have been a target of counterfeiters since 1988.

What's the use of counterfeiting only the label and code? Since Similac With Iron is more costly than Similac without iron, the phony labels always reflect the higher-value product. Some Similac labels contain a "money off next purchase" coupon that the criminals can use for the next purchase. Still, there are label and box printers that are cooperating with the criminals.

Baby formula a target since 1988? What sort of people would do this sort of thing? Criminals, obviously, but a particularly callous variety. The story of one of these criminals makes for interesting reading. Mohamad S. Mostafa specialized in fake baby formula:

Mostafa ran his grocery business--M&M Wholesale--out of an office in Stanton, Calif., with warehouses in nearby Santa Ana and Tustin. He made a few dollars selling some legitimate products, investigators say, but his cash cow was counterfeit infant formula.

Mostafa's illegal operation began when he hired an associate, Ivy Ong, to find a source of inexpensive bulk powdered infant formula. Ong complied, and in December 1994, Mostafa arranged to buy 500,000 pounds of the formula, marked "for export only," from a legitimate company. The formula could not be sold legally in the United States because it did not contain the correct levels of some nutrients required by federal law.

Selling the formula in the United States for about three times what he paid for it, Mostafa stood to net illegal profits in excess of $4 million, according to Jud Bohrer, special agent in charge of the Los Angeles field office of the FDA's Office of Criminal Investigations (OCI).

Mostafa did not export the formula. Instead, he hired laborers to pack the powder in cans similar in size and appearance to those used to package Similac--a higher quality infant formula made by Abbott Laboratories' Ross Products Division in Columbus, Ohio. Posing as a company representative of Ross Products, Mostafa ordered 50,000 labels bearing the registered trade name Similac from a printing company in Beltsville, Md. Mostafa's employees glued the labels onto the one-pound cans of illicit formula, according to investigators.

In January 1995, Mostafa sold more than 3,500 cases of the counterfeit formula to wholesale grocers in California. The formula eventually lined the shelves of retail stores throughout the state.

Sharp-eyed parents noticed something wrong when the quality of the product and the style of the scoop kept changing from can to can. Authorities determined that two different product streams were on store shelves. Some babies got sick -- none seriously, thank goodness, but I can attest to what a messy business it is to deal with a cranky baby who is vomiting with regularity.

As a parent, I think Mostafa should have been drawn-and-quartered for putting anyone through that icky hell.

Mostafa was on the run in 1995 after his warehouse was raided:

OCI agents in Los Angeles traced the fake formula to a grocery wholesaler in Palm Springs, Calif., who identified Mostafa as the seller. In February 1995, the agents located Mostafa's warehouses and secretly watched employees dismantling and loading canning and labelling equipment into a rented truck. Later, agents seized 38,000 pounds of counterfeit powdered formula, cans, and Similac labels from the truck, a warehouse, and a gold BMW belonging to a friend of Mostafa's. More than 6,000 cans of the counterfeit formula were also seized from California retail and wholesale outlets.

After hearing about the FDA seizure, Mostafa fled the country, according to testimony provided by Ong, who was charged as a co-conspirator.

He ended up in Alberta, demanding asylum:

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police were on heightened alert following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when they checked out the applications of several Middle Eastern men who had applied for asylum in Canada. Mostafa was one of the men. Mounties arrested Mostafa in Fort McMurray, Alberta, after they discovered that he had multiple identification cards and that a fugitive warrant had been issued for him in the United States. In October 2001, U.S. Marshals brought Mostafa back to California and jailed him in Santa Ana County until trial.

In 2002, he was sentenced to just under four years in prison, and three years supervised release.

I wonder what is in store for the "unauthorized distributor" selling bad Similac in Canada.