Infrared spectroscopy support for counterfeit or substandard pesticides and fuel fraud investigations at Singapore Synchrotron Light Source (invited talk)

Abstract

Counterfeit and Substandard Pesticides: The potential harm emanating from the ingestion of pesticide residues is a serious public health threat. Illicit pesticides trafficking is carried out by organized criminal networks, which exploit international shipping routes to disseminate five product categories,i.e. expired, counterfeit, mislabeled and unauthorized pesticides imports, and refilled product containers. Fuel Fraud: In importing countries, fuel fraud is driven by disparities in tax rates applied in domestic jurisdictions. It may take the form of purchasing fuel in a State with relatively low tariffs and VATs and selling it in a neighboring country with higher rates or misrepresenting a type of fuel taxed at a lower rate as a fuel taxed at a higher rate. It also gives rise to ‘cocktailing’, or chemically altering fuels so that they mimic hydrocarbons products assessed for lower tariffs or VATs, and then selling them as higher-taxed fuels.

Krzysztof Banas

Principal Research Fellow

I work as beam-line scientist at Singapore Synchrotron Light Source. My research interests include application of advanced statistical methods for hyperspectral data processing (dimension reduction, clustering and identification).