Exclusive: Jail for Chinese profiteers sending COVID-19 supplies home

Exporting face masks or hand sanitiser will be punished with up to five years’ jail, as will price-gouging of these or other “essential goods”.

EXCLUSIVE

Exporting face masks and hand sanitiser will be punished with up to five years’ jail, as will price-gouging of these and other “essential goods”.

The moves come as a Chinese-backed company that recently sent 10,000 masks, 30,000 protective gowns and 68,000 disposable gloves from Sydney to Shanghai claims it is now amassing supplies that it will donate to Australian doctors and nurses.

To ensure there is no repeat of the Chinese takeaway, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has moved to ban exports of gloves, gowns, goggles, visors and alcohol wipes, as well as masks and hand sanitiser.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal a new regulation was put in place this week that says such exporting reduces “the availability of these goods for those with the greatest need in Australia.

“A further aim of this export prohibition is to dissuade consumers from engaging in widespread bulk purchase for the purpose of export,” which is what the Chinese-backed company reportedly did.

Essential goods sent to China by Greenland Australia.

Customs can now seize the essential goods which will be added to the national medical stockpile if they are not defective.

Mr Dutton’s office said it couldn’t comment last night.

In a second regulation change, Health Minister Greg Hunt has attacked price gouging of the same critical items – defined as trying to charge 20 per cent more than what was originally paid for the goods.

This suggests items bought for $5 each could only be on-sold for $6 apiece.

As with rogue exporters, those caught trying to jack up prices to exorbitant levels will be forced to surrender their goods into the stockpile.

Any substandard products will be destroyed.

Mr Hunt’s spokesman said there was no place for “profiteering in a time of crisis.”

Greg Hunt has moved against mask profiteers.

“We are taking strong action so as to protect the vulnerable from the greedy,” he said.

It’s understood that failing to comply with the new regulations could be punished with up to five years’ jail.

Meanwhile, self-described “Chinese-backed” real estate developer Greenland Australia has responded to reports of its controversial medical supplies shipment to Shanghai.

Greenland said it “felt compelled, as a major international company, to assist in efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus” in China.

In a statement which it refused to expand upon, the Sydney-based company said it sent the supplies in late January and early February because China “at the time, was the epicentre of the outbreak”.

These justifications were included in last week’s initial reports on the shipments.

However, this claim was not: “Greenland Australia also recognises that Australian people are currently at risk with the more recent and ongoing domestic spread of COVID-19, so the company is focused on helping people in this country through a similar effort to that undertaken for China.”

Last night it told The Telegraph “we are working to procure a wide range of medical supplies that can be donated to the Australian medical community to help support their efforts to help further slow the spread of COVID-19.”

But it did not say what it was gathering or from where.

It was reported last week that entire departments of Greenland Australia were told to go out and purchase supplies.

The boardroom and meeting rooms of its Sydney CBD headquarters were then used to repack the medical items into boxes stamped with the company’s logo before being dispatched to Shanghai.

The shipments included 1800 forehead thermometers, 400 goggles and 300 shoe covers.

Greenland Australia is part of the Shanghai-based Greenland Group, whose largest shareholder is the city’s government.