Police arrested six people Thursday on suspicion of falsely identifying the origin of Tongan pumpkins as Mexican before distributing them to a wholesaler, police officials said.
Four employees of the Osaka-based semipublic cargo-handling company Osaka Port Terminal Co., including Yoshiyuki Takada, 53, and two former employees of Kyoto-based vegetable trader Royal Co., including Naohiko Inoue, 35, were arrested, police said.
They are suspected of putting 15.1 tons of pumpkins from Tonga into boxes labeled as Mexican produce and shipping them to a Tokyo wholesaler in December 2001, thereby violating the Unfair Competition Prevention Law, police said.
Royal officials said the origin of the pumpkins was faked because the company was short of Mexican pumpkins necessary to fill the orders it had received, the police said.