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Until recently, it was not easy to obtain a hand sanitizer and its raw materials. At this time, companies that made and sold bad hand sanitizers with less ethanol than the standard were caught.

Reporter Yoo Su-hwan reports.

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A factory in Gyeyang-gu, Incheon, and the Seoul Metropolitan Police Department judging where tanks and equipment in one corner of the factory are used.

[Seoul Metropolitan Police Department: Is this an ethanol (mixing) stirrer?]

It is a place to make car cleaners, but was caught secretly making hand sanitizers.

Since last February, all 80,000 bottles and about 450 million original fish have been sold without permission.

The bottle was labeled 65% ethanol, but it was actually only 21%, about a third.

[Seoul Metropolitan Police Department: The ethanol content is less than 30%. Are you saying this is wrong?]

There are also places where water is mixed.

A company in Pocheon, Gyeonggi-do, sold 1,600 bottles of water by trickling a hand sanitizer with only 19% ethanol content into a normal product with 62% ethanol.

When the ethanol price doubled due to the corona crisis, a place where half of the cheap alternative alcohol, isopropyl, was mixed.

The poor quality hand sanitizer sold by this company is 480,000 bottles and 2.9 billion won worth.

When Seoul City tested 18 products of hand sanitizers on the market, the ethanol content of 7 products was lower than the standard of 55%.

[Kim Si-Pil / Head of Health and Drug Investigation Team, Seoul Metropolitan Public Affairs and Police Department: If the ethanol content is low, the sterilizing power of viruses and bacteria is significantly reduced, and there is no use value.

The city of Seoul said it was still investigating, so it was not possible to disclose the name of the defective product, but the disclosed hand sanitizer has been discontinued.

(Video coverage: Hwang In-seok, Video editing: Hojin Kim)