IRS finds high cadmium concentration in Chinese costume jewelry

Like just about anything used in everyday life, so too the jewelry found here is made in China. According to data from the IRS, Brazil has imported about 30, 000 tons of material during the last five years. Well, behold, the excessive amount caught the attention of the body itself, which decided to take a close look at two recently landed containers.

As the Fantastic revealed, the initial suspicion was of tax fraud - importers would have stated a value below what the pieces are really worth. The surprise, however, came from analyzing 24 costume jewelry: 14 of them had excessively high levels of cadmium, a highly toxic material that, in high concentrations in the body, can cause kidney problems and even cancer - being absorbable through the skin.

Almost 40% Cadmium

According to data revealed by the referred program, the evaluated parts presented material concentrations between 32% and 39%. For comparison, the US withdrew thousands of Chinese costume jewelry from the market in 2010 for the same reason: only 0.03% cadmium is tolerated in costume jewelry. In the case of Europe, this same limit drops to 0.01%.

Around here, the issue became a quick ping-pong between Ibama and Anvisa, with the latter issuing a statement to the IRS attesting that this is not a health surveillance case. Thus, the Revenue was required to let the pieces in.

Commonly, jewelry from China is sold in large markets in Sao Paulo, from where they leave for the rest of the country to be resold.