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CHINESE police have arrested four people in connection with more melamine–tainted milk.

Lekang Dairy general manager Zhang Wenxue and vice general managers Zhu Shuming and Tong Tianhu, along with Ma Shuanglin, a milk powder dealer, were charged with manufacturing and selling food that does not meet hygiene standards, according to Chinese state media service Xinhua. Lekang Dairy was implicated in the 2008 scandal and subsequently blacklisted, but was allowed to reopen.

China Daily News reports that authorities had discovered that instead of destroying tainted milk products, Ma had sold the dairy 10 t of “expired” milk powder in September and October 2009. Zhang at Lekang ordered Zhu to mix this powder with some of its own without relevant safety checks and 28 t of this was sold to a food company in Guangdong province. The remaining 4.5 t of the mix was destroyed by inspectors on 22 January.

The Guangdong food company sold the powder on to two further companies. 16.5 t was recovered and destroyed, and sweets produced from the powder were recalled.

The arrests follow a new crackdown with China sending out inspectors to 16 provinces on 2 February to encourage local authorities to thoroughly investigate food safety after tainted milk products re-emerged in recent months. Health minister Chen Zhu told Xinhua that any breaches of the law would be severely dealt with. China executed two people and imprisoned another for life in connection with the first tainted milk scandal in 2008.

In December 2009 it was announced that the Shanghai Panda Dairy had been closed and three senior employees arrested after illegal levels of melamine were found in its milk products, which were all recalled, although this news itself had been suppressed since April.

Melamine, which is high in nitrogen, was added to watered-down milk to make it appear to have a higher protein content, but can cause kidney stones and even kidney failure when ingested in large quantities. In 2008 six babies died and around 300,000 others became ill in China as a result of drinking baby milk containing melamine, according to official figures. Milk products contaminated with melamine were found all over the world, including Europe and the US.