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Pirated Music, Movies, Software
Summary History Markets/prices/who producing and how/exported/domestic

Laws/enforcement/WTO/MPAA Foreign reactions/criticismsGovernments/Hollywood/Software Makers/Recording Industry/MPAA/WTO

Counterfeited consumer products

Summary & History

For domestic consumption

For export Real estimate of black markets extent, volume and rmb amount

Summary of who is producing and who is buying, who involved, rates, regions,hotspots, culture

I want to talk about general history of counterfeit culture, piracy, black market and everything else in this article

Counterfeit medicines and other chemicals

Africans in Guangzhou

Foreigners in China

Foreigners Visa overstays

Foreigners Working without work (Z) visas

Black market of statistics and measuring things for business and local governments

Businesses not paying taxes or benefits to employees (unregistered)

Individuals not paying taxes and working/living off the official grid

Chinese Grey Market

Ties of "less criminal" black market (light) to the "more criminal" (dark) violent one of drugs, prostitutes,violence Prostitution

Drugs

Producing of chemicals used for worldwide mostly illegal drug markets Meth base chemicals, ecstasy base,bath salts,synthetic thc

Child buying/selling

Child kidnapping and forcing them to be beggars

Domestic and foreign black adoptions

Forced by kidnapping or purchased marriages

Black invisible kids due to breaking one child policy

Organs and medical procedures including prison transplant "donations"

Counterfeited currency

Foreigners living in China involved in dark markets

Gutter oil
Gutter oil is a term used in China to describe cooking oil that has already been used and is then processed by cleaning and filtering to be resold as a cheaper alternative to normal cooking oil. The sources of this oil are restaurant fryers, sewers and leftover or used oil that is sold by restaurants. A newer version of gutter oil uses discarded animal parts, animal fat, internal organs, and expired or otherwise low quality meat which is then cooked in large vats in order to extract the oil.

The first documented case of gutter oil was in the year 2000 when a street vendor was found to be selling oil obtained from restaurant garbage disposals.

The collected oil is sold to local workshops or small factories for cleaning and packaging or on other occasions to industrial cooking oil refiners for further processing before it finally reaches its end purpose. The industrial oil refiners are many times legitimate producers that sell the processed oil for use in the chemical industry. They can also have other intentions as the prices attained by selling it as cooking oil are much higher than if it is sold to the chemical industries or by having it processed into biodiesel. There aren't proper rules and protocols in place to prevent purchases from or sales to entities intending to use the oil for human consumption.

Restaurants and street vendors are the biggest end buyers of gutter oil as the consumers never have the chance to see the oil that is being used to cook the food. Moreover, it is also one of the largest kitchen expenses for restaurants, so obtaining cheaper oil can allow an offending restaurant to reduce its overall expenses. Chinese food is generally heavily dependent on oil due to most foods being fried so cheaper meal prices for the many cost conscious consumers are possible if gutter oil is used instead of normal oil. The situation becomes more serious due to the fact that it is hard to distinguish gutter oil from legitimate oil. Bleach is used to transform gutter oil's dark color into a more natural one and alkali additives are used to reduce the abnormal pH caused by containing high rates of animal fats. Tests solely using a pH strip to identify gutter oil will fail because the pH has been lowered to a level equivalent to natural oils. Gutter oil has been shown to be very toxic, able to cause diarrhea and abdominal pain. There are also reports that long-term consumption of the oil can lead to stomach and liver cancer as well as developmental disabilities in newborns and children.

The national and local governments are currently researching ways to test and identify gutter oil but as of 2012 there aren't any nationwide standards in place to help with this process. The government is looking into methods that rely on technical equipment as well as on-site instant tests to screen suspect oil. A nationwide campaign was set in motion in August of 2011 to crackdown on the widespread producing and selling of gutter oil. The law enforcement campaign has found producers and sellers in 14 provinces and arrested more than 2,000 people involved in the production and sale of gutter oil.

To see a Chinese news produced video about gutter oil please see this link Gutter oil video