Ways That Are Dark

The head of a Chinese company behind a recall of toys that could cost $30 million committed suicide over the weekend. Zhang Shuhong, president of Lee Der Industrial, which supplied toys coated with lead paint to Mattel, was found dead in one of his warehouses over the weekend.

The Washington Post reports that:

His death dramatized the high stakes in an international scare over unsafe Chinese products and an increasingly vigorous government crackdown designed to restore confidence in the export industry.

It has also been reported by The Washington Post and The New York Times that the paint in question was sold to Lee Der by a company controlled by a close friend of the deceased.

Read more in Chinese Toy Executive Found Hanged After Export Ban and  Owner of Chinese Toy Factory Commits Suicide.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 14th, 2007 at 8:12 pm and is filed under Product Safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.