USDA identifies 14 of those mysterious seeds from China
The strange seeds began appearing in Americans’ mailboxes at least two months ago
By Eamon Barrett
Fortune
August 3, 2020
Excerpt:
It’s not only the U.S. on the receiving end of this bizarre scheme, and it isn’t always China that’s marked as the country of origin. A woman in the U.K. and another in Canada received seeds purporting to be from Singapore. Meanwhile, a woman in New Zealand was sent seeds reportedly from Zambia. New Zealand’s Ministry of Primary Industries intercepted the seeds before they arrived, replacing them with a note warning the woman not to import seeds illegally.
Most countries regulate the import of seeds and other organic material, to protect against invasive species. In the U.S., gardeners have previously been blamed for unleashing Japanese knotweed and butterfly bush on American soil, while the U.K.’s Animal and Plant Health Agency intercepts around 1,000 plant-related shipments a year.
The latest batch of mysterious seed parcels has received more media attention than normal, perhaps due to the deterioration of China-U.S. relations. Some pundits have wondered aloud whether the seed shipments could be an act of state-sponsored ecoterrorism. The USDA, however, says there’s no evidence to suggest the fraudulent packages are anything other than a “brushing scam.”
Brushing is when a seller on an e-commerce site, such as Amazon, boosts their ranking by falsifying reviews and sales. Mailing cheap products to unsuspecting customers is one way to do that. The practice is common in China.
