Millions of Contaminated Disposable Gloves Shipped to US During Pandemic

In the height of the coronavirus pandemic, personal protective equipment (PPE) such as disposable nitrile gloves were in short supply. Essential workers were desperate for PPE to protect themselves from infection. U.S. distributors struggled to fill orders, and many turned to new sources for their products.

A CNN investigation found warehouses in Thailand are selling used disposable gloves as new, going as far as to dye them to cover any stains. These South Asian companies have been selling millions of counterfeit, sub-standard, and used gloves to the United States and other countries around the world. Criminal investigations are underway by the authorities in the United States and Thailand.

However, U.S. authorities are struggling to control the illicit PPE trade, in part because import regulations for PPE were temporarily suspended at the height of the pandemic and remain suspended today.

This past February and March, one U.S. company warned two federal agencies—U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) —that it had received shipments filled with substandard and visibly soiled gloves from a company in Thailand. However, the Thai company managed to ship tens of millions more gloves in the following months, some arriving as recently as July 2021.

Nitrile gloves, which are produced almost entirely in south and east Asia, rely on a finite supply of natural rubber, highly specialized factories, and niche manufacturing expertise. When the pandemic hit, ramping up supply couldn’t happen quickly enough and production from trusted, established brands was spoken for years in advance. As governments and hospital systems scrambled to get what they needed, dozens of shady companies looking to turn a quick profit saw an opportunity.

One Miami-based businessman explained how he ordered about US$2 million worth of disposable gloves from a Thai-based company, which he then sold to a U.S. distributor. He soon was getting phone calls from upset clients complaining that the gloves were not new, but instead washed and recycled. Some still were dirty, some had bloodstains on them, and some had dates from two years ago. After refunding his customers and taking the gloves to a landfill, he reported the issue to the FDA. Yet the Thai company continued to sell gloves to U.S. businesses.

Learn more about PPE fraud and efforts to combat it.