Beauty queen sold ‘fibre' gummies laced with laxatives
A Vietnamese beauty queen and social media influencer has been arrested for promoting a fake supplement laced with laxatives to her millions of followers.
Nguyen Thuc Thuy Tien, a 27-year-old former winner of the Miss Grand International beauty pageant, was detained in Vietnam for consumer fraud on Monday after pushing the gummies, which she claimed were rich in fibre, across her social media platforms.
At the time, Thuy Tien had a combined following of nearly 11.5 million people.
Thuy Tien produced the gummies, which launched at the end of 2024, as part of a joint venture called Kera Supergreens Gummies with fellow content creators Pham Quang Linh and Hang Du Muc.
The three influencers, who are active across Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok, would regularly livestream themselves promoting the gummies and claiming that they each contained an equivalent amount of fibre to a plate of vegetables.
In livestreams, Thuy Tien would often refer to the gummies as her 'brainchild' and take credit that the 'Kera candy comes from me personally'.
She even said that she developed the product because 'I myself cannot eat vegetables' and would recommend 2-3 pills per day for young children and pregnant mothers.
However, a few months after the release, one customer decided to send the supplement to a lab to be tested and found that each gummy contained only 16mg of fibre, a fraction of the 200mg that had been advertised.
They also found that the product was 35 per cent sorbitol, which is used as a laxative.
According to police, over 135,000 units of the product were sold to more than 30,000 customers, generating revenues exceeding VND17 billion (approximately £489,112).
The three influencers were initially fined in March and apologised, but the following month Pham and Hang Du Muc were arrested alongside other representatives from Kera and its manufacturer, including the head of quality assurance and head of production.
Thuy Tien, a well-known celebrity in Vietnam, was not arrested until Monday, but she wiped several of her social media accounts in March.
During the investigation, Thuy Tien reportedly admitted that she initially had 'good ideas' for the product and has been eager to 'participate in the management'.
'When you are a famous person, your responsibility is very big. People will buy this product a lot because of you,' she was quoted as saying in her defence.
Thuy Tien has received numerous accolades from Vietnam's ruling Communist Party, including a certificate of merit from the prime minister and the Outstanding Young Vietnamese Faces award presented by the central committee of the Ho Chi Minh communist youth union.
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