Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A very odd story, people in Utah and Virginia have reported receiving unsolicited packets of seeds from China, mislabelled as Jewellery. Utah and Virginia Agriculture departments are investigating.
Mysterious seeds sent from China to Utah
By: Adam HerbetsPosted at 9:13 PM, Jul 22, 2020 and last updated 3:41 AM, Jul 24, 2020
TOOELE, Utah — Over the past few weeks, people in Utah have been reporting mysterious packages they’ve been receiving in the mail from China.
Lori Culley, who lives in Tooele, said she was excited to find two small packages in her mailbox on Tuesday. Although most of the writing on the outside was in Chinese, the label indicated there would be earrings inside.
“I opened them up and they were seeds,” Culley said. “Obviously they’re not jewelry!”
Culley couldn’t understand why she would be receiving mislabeled seeds from China in the mail, but at first she didn’t think much of it.
She posted about the strange incident on Facebook, where some of her friends reminded her plants and seeds are strictly regulated in Utah.
FOX 13 has confirmed the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food will likely team up with Customs and Border Protection agents to investigate.
…
Read more: https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/utah-department-of-agriculture-investigates-mysterious-seeds-sent-from-china-to-tooele
The following is a tweet of seeds collected by Virginia Department of Agriculture (h/t Fox News).
Even Snopes accepts that people have been receiving unsolicited packets of seeds from China, though they question people jumping to conclusions, ascribing harmful motives to whoever is sending the seeds.
Virginia Department of Agriculture advises people not to plant the seeds.
PRESS RELEASES
July 24, 2020
Public Asked To Report Receipt of any Unsolicited Packages of Seeds
Contact: Michael Wallace, 804.786.1904The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) has been notified that several Virginia residents have received unsolicited packages containing seeds that appear to have originated from China. The types of seeds in the packages are unknown at this time and may be invasive plant species. The packages were sent by mail and may have Chinese writing on them.
Please do not plant these seeds. VDACS encourages anyone who has received unsolicited seeds in the mail that appears to have Chinese origin to contact the Office of Plant Industry Services (OPIS) at 804.786.3515 or through the ReportAPest@vdacs.virginia.gov email.
Invasive species wreak havoc on the environment, displace or destroy native plants and insects and severely damage crops. Taking steps to prevent their introduction is the most effective method of reducing both the risk of invasive species infestations and the cost to control and mitigate those infestations.
Source: http://www.vdacs.virginia.gov/press-releases-200724-seeds.shtml
Obviously at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions its easy to suspect the worst. But the seeds could have nothing to do with the Chinese Government. The simple truth is everyone seems to be guessing, nobody seems to have any idea why someone decided to send packets of seeds to random people in the USA.
I think the key takeaway is don’t plant them. Don’t even try to burn them, if they are toxic the smoke from burning even a small number of seeds could harm you. Call your local department of Agriculture to dispose of them safely.
If any botanists out there have any idea what the seeds are, please post in comments.
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They look like they came from a chocolate chip cookie plant!
Now I am hungry……
Triffid seeds. Grown for their high quality oils. Available through John Wyndham Seeds And Other Exotica. (like saw blade launchers)
From the online pictures I am seeing the type of seeds vary from post to post. Some are tan in color, while others are dark brown. In other cases the packet of seeds varies both in color, shape, and size.
– since last year people have been receiving stuff from China they didn’t order, low value things like jewelry and seeds. Always involving Amazon or Walmart (these latest unsolicited seed are Amazon) because both companies have a seller scoring system that relies on customer reviews.
– the Customs mis-declaration of ‘jewelry’ in packages containing seeds is a known phenomenon to bypass Dept of Ag screening. Traditionally misdeclarations of contents in this ‘pre-cleared’ mail would have harsh consequences applied by the sending country because they value open trade and do not want to run afoul of US Customs. China doesn’t care because we all wanted unrestricted commerce and we’re kinda mean towards them recently so why would they go out of their way to cooperate.
– yes some of the seeds may be for invasive species. People also ask for and pay for invasive species. It’s kind of surreal that the fear-porn artists present this in a new tone of threat voice as if China suddenly made invasive plant species a branch of their military.
– during lockdown many people have been ordering seeds from Amazon. Not the people that received the mystery seeds but others. All seed companies are scrambling to be the ones to meet this demand.
– The Crappy Seed Co. of China or its Representative (A) has an Amazon reputation that is slipping, customers complain. The company claims exotic rose hybrids and sends regular rose seeds. Some seeds are mixed with weeds. Things are mislabeled, counts vary but everything’s cheap because Amazon ship from China is partly subsidized with your tax dollars. They see their sales drop off as Amazon pushes their listings down on the list and want to jump on top again.
– Crappy Seed Co. (A) hires Amazon hacker (B) to ‘boost’ their sales on Amazon.
– (B) is in possession of ID information for some US people, preferably NOT existing Amazon customers. Simple not so threatening stuff like (Name, Address, Phone). They create new fake Amazon accounts for each of these people (and unique emails) and actually buy (A)’s product, actually have it shipped to the USA. Actual people get a mystery package. Before the fear-porn during pandemic people would just shrug and keep or throw away the product.
– After delivery the fake accounts are confirmed buyers and review (A) with 5 star reviews and positive comments. Crappy Seed Co rises in the rankings again and makes more sales. Easily outweighing the small cost of items and (B)’s administrative fee.
– The fake account is even saved for later, when (B) gets paid by someone else to ‘boost’ their Amazon sales rank. Then the person might receive another mystery product. Amazon does cross checking on phone number so the fake accounts benefit greatly from being a real person with that phone number. For all Amazon knows they are a new customer or additional person at that address.
– the (required by Customs) recipient phone number shown on at least one package is +1 210-728-4548 ext. xxxxx which is in San Antonio TX. It is actually an Amazon corporate number that was set up to anonymize buyers. If you call that number and enter the xxxxx extension it forwards the call to the actual customer phone (in this case the person receiving the mystery package). That was my clue that the mystery packages were Amazon buys.
– so people are getting cheap things they didn’t order is “brush scam” and it represents a low impact identify theft.
You can order many kinds of flower and garden-plant seeds on Wish, Alibaba and other platforms, for pennies. As the value is below the non-taxable limit anyway, the sellers generally won’t care what they put on the customs labels (they don’t with other things either, nor do sellers from other countries – it is a silly thing to begin with that you have to declare content when it is clear from the value of the package that it will not be subject to import duties because it counts as a valueless sample). All this is common practice, though strictly speaking not correct of course, anyone who has ever bought small household things etc. online knows that. After the stuff arrives, it is very easy to claim it was unsolicited, call the police and the press, and very conveniently fuel the current public unrest and anti-Chinese racism. Or you have them sent to an unwitting third party, then they are really unsolicited and you don’t even need to fake the panic. China (meaning the totalitarian government of the country, not the population!) does a lot of very problematic if not downright evil things. This however is just sophomoric nonsense, either calculated fearmongering or a childish prank. I suspect Antifa, or “anti-Globalists” trying to sabotage worldwide trade, behind this non-news.
Astounding that the inept clowns at the Virginia Department of Agriculture can’t identify the seeds after what…3 weeks? Man, have we Americans been asleep at the switch. 90% of our “leaders” are little more than incompetent fraudulent grifters. Someone bring the seeds to a gardening club or something…where the amatures can help us out! Sheesh! You can’t make it up!
My experience: 20 yr mixed vege farmer, w a Chinese medicine license and lots of herbal cultivation and landscape exp too.
All seed pics don’t look like anything I’ve worked with I can recall. Certainly not any common Chinese veges. It could be brushing(sending out CCP free shipped crap for fake domestic reviews), but I doubt it.
I’d be very suspicious they were invasives, or worse – bio-engineered. There have been weird mystery drone sightings in US Ag land w odd FBI requests for all night vision goggles at same time. Clearly bio-terrorism is real.
I’m pretty sure it’s a Krynoid from the Doctor Who episode “The Seeds of Doom”
These are obviouslt Triffid seeds, genetically engineered in a laboratory in Wuhan. If planted, they grow intp giant carnivorous plants that consume the planter when they least expect it. They are also able to move around at night to seek new victims.
Lol. Seriously though…I’ve had land w bad invasives – including Chinese tallow. Kudzu anyone? A few straw seeds can create an intractable problem within a decade.
Cmon folks, it’s not a 007 plot with bioengineered seeds of doom. It’s just a boring scam to raise the ratings for some crooked Amazon sellers.
You’re all wrong. I’ve seen these before..
Love these old B&W sci-fi movies, some still scare the crap out of me.
Sheesh! NEVER open a package that you are not expecting or cannot recognise/identify.
i dont know why they keep making a big deal out of this its part of a scam… they sell jewelry on line and send somthing small and stupid with a tracking number to somone.. when tracking says it arrived the money get released from places like ebay amazon etc.. they shut down the account and start a new one..99% profit
That might be a possible scam, if Amazon does a really crappy job verifying seller identities. But you miss the point that the recipients did not order anything on Amazon. The packages arrive unsolicited. Where’s the 99% profit in a $0 selling price? So it’s not the explanation for this case.
By far the most likely scenario is a scheme to game the seller rating system.
I think it likely that they are seeds of discontent.
Sorry …..
Would do some good to read “Pandemonium – author Andrew Nkiforuk – all about how Global Pandemics spread so rapidly due to modern commerce, have a read about bioterrorism using the global seed trade to spread pathogens Page 115 “almost every crop of any nutritional or economic significance is now under siege or has had a brush with death. Monoculture and limited genetic diversity combined with unprecedented trade in crops and seeds have given a veritable horde of fungi, viruses, bacteria and plant eating insects a competitive edge. When Tommy Thompson retired in 2004 as the U.S. secretary of health and human services, he famously remarked “For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not targeted our food supply because it is easy “…
After reading through that booklet, there are many examples of spread of such invaders and the devastation caused to economies by Black stem rust, insects and bacterium , plum pox, bean dwarf mosaic virus, and a host of others that can cause havoc to crops, soy bean rust,….or this “everyone agrees that the global exchange of agricultural pathogens is real and growing. IN FACT (at the time of writing biological invaders alone now account for about 60 percent of U.S. crop losses every year, at a cost o$137 billion.
So don’t take any risks! unsolicited seed should be quarantined and turned over to your Department of Agriculture. for laboratory testing /destruction. Just in case…
So what does the Chinese packaging say. Surely someone can read Chinese, and if not there is always Google translate.
I don’t see any picture of the package to check that, but your insistence on believing that this is all an innocent mistake, a simple case of a translation error where “seeds” got mistranslated to “jewelry”, and a real name and address of a non-customer randomly got typed, just by pure accident, is touching Ian. Nobody can accuse you of being biased against these hard-working Chinese entrepreneurs.
I have a couple of bridges in my inventory that I need to sell real cheap because of tax reasons and because my cousin the Nigerian prince hasn’t been able to get his funds out of the country due to capital controls. Perhaps you’re interested?
It’s the Chinese Underpants Gnomes!
1. Collect seeds
2. Post to Western countries
3. ????
4. PROFIT!!!
Could it perhaps be Prank seeds?
Also received seeds in KY, though they appear to be cucumber seeds. Got the same trinket gift as pictured though.
Reported to KY-AG
Another website posted pictures of unsolicited seeds. Their color was different than those shown above & were obviously just dried lemon seeds.
I think the commentator saying it was an Amazon seller pumping & dumping for search result positioning upwards has the story correct. Cucumber seeds arriving in KY
are a similarly abundant seed as (say) lemon seed for dispensing.
Whatever they are I would be amazed if a fair number have not already been landfilled or thrown in local garbage pits. Private garbage pits are quite common in rural areas.
I hope the people at the Dept of Agriculture have enough sense to germinate a few in a quarantined environment for testing.
Mysterious seeds? . . . Seems I’ve seen . . . Yeah, that’s the ticket, this was predicted by the SF film “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” except they got one detail wrong: they weren’t giant seed pods carried around in trucks or in the trunks of cars, but instead . . .
Obviously, the Ag Dept. should be all over this, however, it is most interesting that a fuzzy photo could generate what might be a never-ending conversation.
Google Lens, says peppercorns, yet never mind that Google is a never-ending purveyor of slanted information.
I’m being helpful. They look like seeds 🙂
Tamarind seeds
Perhaps.
The latest?
https://www.foxnews.com/us/china-plant-seeds-mystery-us-homes