SULTAN -- Seven cars with darkened windows barreled east toward the Cascades, whizzing past this Snohomish County hamlet's smattering of shops and eateries.
The sedans and sport utility vehicles stirred up dust as they rolled into the parking lot of Pure Foods Inc., a Washington honey producer.
Out popped a dozen people in dark windbreakers identifying them as feds -- agents from Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Some raced to the loading docks. Others hurried through the front door. All were armed.
The man who runs the business, Mike Ingalls, was stunned.
"I just sell honey -- what the hell is this all about?" he remembered asking, as he was hustled into a tiny room with his office manager and truck driver.
Three days before the April 25 raid, customs had persuaded a federal judge in Seattle to issue the search warrant shoved in Ingalls' hands. But it wasn't until Ingalls read "Attachment D" that he understood why investigators were seizing his business records, passport, phone logs, photographs, Rolodexes, mail and computer files -- almost anything that could be copied or hauled away.
He was suspected of trafficking in counterfeit merchandise -- a honey smuggler.
A far cry from the innocent image of Winnie the Pooh with a paw stuck in the honey pot, the international honey trade has become increasingly rife with crime and intrigue.
In the U.S., where bee colonies are dying off and demand for imported honey is soaring, traders of the thick amber liquid are resorting to elaborate schemes to dodge tariffs and health safeguards in order to dump cheap honey on the market, a five-month Seattle P-I investigation has found.
The business is plagued by foreign hucksters and shady importers who rip off conscientious U.S. packers with honey diluted with sugar water or corn syrup -- or worse, tainted with pesticides or antibiotics.
Full story: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/394053_honey30.asp
