The National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service caught 77 businesses this month for violating country-of-origin labeling rules for flowers.
On the 25th, the agency said it carried out inspections from May 4 to 19, when flower consumption rises during the "family month" of May, targeting flower wholesale markets nationwide, wholesalers and retailers, and big-box stores.
In particular, authorities focused inspections on cut flowers such as carnations for false or missing country-of-origin labels.
Violations were tallied as follows: ▲ carnations 65 cases (83.3%) ▲ roses 8 cases (10.3%) ▲ chrysanthemums 3 cases (3.8%).
Five businesses that falsely sold Chinese- and Colombian-grown carnations as domestic were booked on criminal charges. Under relevant law, falsely labeling the country of origin is punishable by up to seven years in prison or fines of up to 100 million won.
Seventy-two businesses that did not label the country of origin were slapped with a total of 3.971 million won in fines.