Fraudulent organic certificate reported

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released a list of reported fraudulent organic certificates, including a pineapple supplier in Mexico.

The fraudulent certificate, labeled as a “certiicate (sic) of organic production” indicates that Organic Certifiers certified Renagrotec SPR de Rl, a grower in Oaxaca, Mexico, in Nov. 2015 for pineapple, lemon and mango.

According to the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service website, neither Organic Certifiers nor Renagrotec SPR de Rl are responsible for the alteration of the certificate. Renagrotec is still certified organic, and has been since 2013, but only for pineapple.

An AMS spokesperson compared the fraudulent certificate to identity theft, explaining that fraudulent certificates are sometimes created by an intermediate or final seller that wants to represent product from an earlier stage in the supply chain as organic. For example, Broker B may create a fraudulent certificate with Company A’s name on it to sell product labeled as organic to Buyer C.  The fraudulent certificates are caught when the certified operations purchasing product and their certifiers do checks and audits to ensure a certificate’s validity.  If a company’s or certifier’s name has been used to create a fraudulent certificate without their knowledge, they would not be fined for this use.

Organic Certifiers did not respond to inquiries.