ISTANBUL: 33,000 Chinese shoes packed in five semi-trailer trucks containing perilous chemicals, which had been lost in Istanbul’s customs have reached to the market. However the customs department was unable to figure it out.
According to officials, Turkish customs decided not to permit the import of shoes from China as of Aug. 24 of this year, and to destroy those with harmful chemicals found on them. Customs transferred the harmful shoes to the neighboring province Kocaeli on Oct. 20 to destroy them in a disposal facility.
But a customs official noticed that the shoes in the boxes to be destroyed were not the dangerous ones. They had been exchanged for used shoes collected from the market. Customs and Trade Minister Nurettin Canikli confirmed the incident on Tuesday. “Unfortunately, some of the shoes have been sold on the domestic market. We do not know how many reached to the market,” he said.
Canikli warned people to not buy very inexpensive shoes in Turkey: “Citizens need to pay careful attention to products sold at very low prices.”
