Skymed Thai medical glove company CEO arrested after CNN investigation

The CIB had beforehand advised CNN it's working intently with the FBI on the SkyMed investigation in response to a grievance from an American buyer. The CIB now says that US buyer had paid $6.2 million for two million containers of SkyMed gloves. But for the reason that cash was wired to the company in December 2020 as a 40% down cost, not a single pair of gloves has ever been delivered to the American consumer."The Thai government is taking this issue seriously and we are making sure to bring justice to damaged parties," Jirabhob mentioned final week after a prolonged CNN investigation was printed. CNN beforehand reported that Tarek Kirschen, a Miami-based businessman, had ordered about $2 million of gloves from a company referred to as Paddy the Room late final yr. The gloves that arrived had been branded SkyMed. Kirschen advised CNN the supposedly medical grade gloves had been soiled, bloodstained, and had been washed and reused. In December final yr the Thai Food and Drug Administration raided a Paddy the Room warehouse the place migrant employees had been packing unfastened gloves into containers branded SkyMed. "Any sub-standard gloves, could be from China, Vietnam or Malaysia. They would bring these gloves in bulk, and they would not declare them as medical gloves. Then these gloves would be repacked as SkyMed and all documents would be doctored and sent to the third country," Thai FDA deputy secretary-general Supattra Boonserm advised CNN in a current interview. Last week, in a prolonged on-camera interview with CNN, Kampee denied his company was a part of any repackaging operation occurring within the warehouse when it was raided. "The owner of the warehouse, they just wanted to repack our brand and export it," he mentioned. Kampee mentioned if any gloves are exported from Thailand beneath the SkyMed model, it's "not under our permission," he advised CNN.

Supattra, from the Thai FDA, advised CNN that SkyMed had an import license to herald medical gloves made in Vietnam, however information present SkyMed by no means imported medical gloves to Thailand, nor does the company manufacture its personal gloves. After giving CNN contradictory solutions in regards to the variety of glove suppliers it has in Thailand, Kampee in the end mentioned there have been none. Kampee additionally claimed SkyMed has stuffed orders for 100 million containers of gloves however wouldn't say who had bought them. In August the US FDA despatched an alert to all its port workers that shipments from Sufficiency Economy City Co. Ltd. ought to be topic to detention with out bodily examination. On Friday the FDA mentioned it was "investigating certain imported medical gloves that appear to have been reprocessed, cleaned or recycled and sold as new," and referred to as on American healthcare suppliers to report any issues with medical gloves. The US Department of Homeland Security can also be investigating.