According to a report from the US Senate, at least 8,000 BMW Mini Cooper cars were imported into the US with parts from banned Chinese firm Sichuan Jingweida Technology Group (JWD).
The report claims that parts used by BMW, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), and Volkswagen (VW) were supplied by a supplier on a list of businesses that were barred because of potential connections to forced labour in China.
The report of the probe was released by the Senate Finance Committee chairman, Ron Wyden.
Senator Wyden called for “supercharge enforcement and crackdown on companies that fuel the shameful use of forced labor” from the US Customs and Border Protection agency.
The US Congress passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) into law in 2021 as a means of preventing the importation of goods from China’s north-western Xinjiang region believed to have been made by people from the Uyghur minority group in forced labour conditions.
The Chinese firm JWD was added to the UFLPA Entity List in December 2023.
However, Chinese authorities have denied all allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang.