The Hiup Fake Milk Scandal: A Failure of Governance or a Betrayal of Public Trust?

The “Hiup fake milk” scandal serves as a brutal stress test for state governance in a consumer society where public trust is increasingly commercialized, manipulated, and ultimately betrayed.

The case centers on the infuriating courtroom defense of Z Holding Chairman Hoàng Quang Thịnh, who argued that his product was safe because “the milk contains no harmful substances.” He even claimed, “My children drink the milk I produce every morning and evening, as do friends, relatives, and even my own nieces and nephews.” [1]

This defense exposes a dangerous sleight of hand in food governance. Food—especially those marketed as nutritional products or supplements—cannot be judged solely by a “non-toxic” threshold. Consumers are buying trust in a product’s specific composition and function. When a manufacturer markets a product for physical development but substitutes ingredients or fabricates the formula, they are violating the consumer’s fundamental right to truthful information.

With nutritional products, harm does not necessarily manifest as acute poisoning. It can accumulate silently as lost opportunities: children do not receive the nutrients they were led to expect; parents delay seeking real medical solutions, believing the milk is sufficient; and families incur long-term health costs. 

In this light, the defense that “my children drink it too” is legally meaningless and reveals a terrifying erosion of social responsibility.

Regulatory Responsibility or Legal Loopholes?

Condemning a few greedy individuals misses the point. The Hiup fake milk scandal was not an impulsive act; it was a sophisticated and immoral business model built to exploit regulatory gaps. By pushing products through online sales networks and reducing costs through modified formulas, the defendants generated trillions of đồng in revenue through the fraud ecosystem that they created. [2]

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The core problem is that the “nutrition-supplement” market relies on a “trust economy.” [3] Parents cannot test chemical formulas; they rely on labels, advertising, and word-of-mouth. Meanwhile, the state manages this risk through self-declaration and post-market inspection. This model may reduce administrative burdens, but it crumbles when applied to products with high social risk and lucrative advertising returns.

When a product can reach millions of online shopping carts in days—but enforcement takes months—that gap becomes the fraudster’s “profit zone.” By continuing to treat all products alike—regulating “milk for children” much like an ordinary consumer good—the state risks a dangerous equivalence that threatens public health.

From a legal standpoint, the 2015 Criminal Code imposes severe penalties for counterfeit food and allows for corporate prosecution. [4] However, deterrence fails when detection is too slow. If a network can sell millions of units before the law catches up, the social damage is already done. Furthermore, the current legal process focuses on punishing the criminal, leaving the consumer behind. There are no clear answers on product recalls, compensation, or accountability for those who enabled the violations. [5]

Hence, the Hiup case forces a policy choice: continue governing by trust, or seriously invest in verification infrastructure. Governing by trust may save costs in the short term, but the price paid when that trust collapses is far higher. If Việt Nam wants to prevent the recurrence of similar “fake milk cycles,” it needs a rigorous governance framework: strengthening pre-market controls, mandating independent testing for products targeting children, and establishing recall mechanisms simple enough for people to actually use.

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Social trust cannot be restored by moralizing or imposing heavy sentences after the damage is done. Instead, trust returns only when the system makes fraud difficult to execute, expensive to attempt, and easy to detect. The Hiup fake milk case should be seen as a foundational lesson in market governance for a modern consumer society that Việt Nam is still struggling to construct.

Thái An wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on Jan. 09, 2026. Đàm Vĩnh Hằng translated it into English for The Vietnamese Magazine.