Yesterday afternoon, near Kunming's Gaohai Highway, the reporter drove into a village beside Huiwan, winding through dirt roads, climbing Daqing Mountain, and descending directly to the mountainside, where a brick house enclosed by a wall came into view. The journey was nearly 5 kilometers long. Upon entering the gate, flies swarmed, and a foul stench hit us. Inside and outside the gate, multiple police cars were parked. It turned out that police had discovered a hidden casing-processing workshop in the mountains. In the 300-square-meter facility, dozens of barrels of casings and bags of raw materials such as industrial alkali and industrial salt were stored.

Background:
Casings are livestock products made by scraping the large and small intestines of domestic animals, primarily used as casings for sausages and enema products. They are categorized by animal type into pork casings, sheep casings, and beef casings.

Law enforcement officers inspected the site and found it to be a squalid and unsanitary location for processing and storing casings. The presence of industrial raw materials indicated a suspected illegal food-processing operation.

After investigating the suspicious unlicensed workshop hidden in Daqing Mountain, the Xishan Public Security Bureau’s Public Order Brigade, Biji Police Station officers, and quality supervision and industry and commerce personnel carried out a surprise inspection at around 10 a.m. yesterday. Upon arrival, they found two men and women working inside. A search revealed industrial raw materials and dozens of barrels of semi-finished and finished casings. Police then summoned the person in charge for questioning.

At around 2:30 p.m., a man named Ma claimed to be the person in charge and arrived at the scene. Ma, a Hebei native who has lived in Kunming for over a decade, said he has long been engaged in casing sales. Last year, due to his wife’s family’s 拆迁 (demolition and relocation), he lacked a place to store casings and could not find suitable urban premises, so he rented this remote location in Daqing Mountain for ¥20,000 per year, moving here from Qianwei in June last year. Ma claimed the industrial raw materials were merely stored on-site and unused. He added, “After purchasing casings, we wash them in large pools and coat them with casing salt to make semi-finished and finished products.”

The reporter noted that the original Food Hygiene License and photocopy of the Individual Industrial and Commercial Household Business License presented by Ma had both expired two years prior.

A middle-aged couple hired by Ma to guard the workshop had worked there for six months, each receiving a monthly salary of ¥1,500 from Ma.

According to Xishan District Quality Supervision Bureau staff, the environment was extremely poor, and using non-edible industrial raw materials in food processing is prohibited. Due to the on-site discovery of banned industrial materials, the workshop may be suspected of using them in food processing, and further investigation is required. By 3 p.m., three persons involved were taken away by police for questioning.