The US Department of Homeland Security is currently investigating  Chinese online retailer Temu for allegedly violating the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, media reports said.

If proven guilty, the company may be prevented from selling their wares in the US.

Officials and intelligence experts told New York Post that the too-cheap-to-beat company plays an unfair role in the US market, spies on its mobile app users and relies on products made from slave labour to get its dirt-cheap pricing.

A senior DHS official told the newspaper that the agency has been investigating Temu for slave-labour violations, but the Biden administration has yet to take action against the retailer.

Temu was noticeably absent from the list of 29 Chinese companies that were added on Friday to the US’ banned list for violating the UFPLA.

Drafted and advanced under the Trump administration and signed into law by President Biden in 2021, the UFLPA outlaws the import of goods “manufactured wholly or in part with forced labour” in China, especially from Xinjiang — home to Uyghur Muslims that China has placed in forced-labour camps, The New York Post.

Companies that are found violating the provisions on the UFPLA entity list are barred from selling their products in the USA.

Temu is an online marketplace operated by the Chinese e-commerce company PDD Holdings.

It was launched in 2022.

Kevin Hulbert, a former senior intelligence officer in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations and CEO of XK Group Business Intelligence, told The New York Post that Temu’s suspiciously low prices have alarmed officials for years.

“It’s just incredible that those guys can make a dress, ship it halfway around the world and sell it for, you know, $8 or something, and so those put all sorts of US businesses out of business,” Hulbert said. “And then comes in a question of how do they do that?”