(xinhua)
Updated: 2007-08-16 23:09

GUANGZHOU -- The boss of a Chinese toy company at the center of a massive recall of its products in the United States paid his workers before committing suicide after the scandal broke, according to a local official.

Most of the 5,000 employees in Lida Plastic Toys Co. Ltd had been paid before Zhang Shuhong was found hanged on the factory premises, said a publicity official with Nanhai District, Foshan City, Guangdong Province.

About 100 workers were still working at the company to maintain the workshops or wait for their salaries. All the others had returned to their hometowns or left the company to seek other jobs.

Zhang killed himself around 3:00 pm on Saturday reportedly because of the pressure from Mattel's recall of 967,000 toys made by the company which were found to contain excessive lead levels early this month.

According to China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, the contamination was caused by Lida's paint supplier which used fake materials in production.

Lida Toy was a contract manufacturer for Mattel's Fisher-Price unit.

Workers of Lida estimated that the recall caused a loss of about US$30 million, driving the company to ruin, according to earlier reports.

The recalled toys, which included popular preschool characters such as Elmo and Big Bird, were in the warehouses of Lida awaiting disposal by local industry and commerce authorities, the official said.