AN organised criminal network is now thought to be involved in the horse meat scandal which has suppliers and retailers across Europe. The massive fraud was blown open by Ireland ’s tiny
Food Safety Authority which carried out random tests on beef products late last
year. It exposed the massive profits made by criminal suppliers
out to make a quick buck with fake food. Horse meat trades for up to €700 a ton while beef commands
€3,000 leaving a healthy profit for shadowy importers and agents willing to
cash in.
Following the lead set by the FSAI French investigators immediately
launched an investigation which led a supplier in the south of the country. It had imported 750 tons of horsemeat worth €525,000 from Romania which
became relabelled as beef making it worth €2.25 million. The transaction was organised through a broker who used
off-shore companies previously linked used to convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout, according to reports. The infamous Russian gun-runner was played by Nicholas cage
in the movie Lord of war which was loosely based on his exploits.
The detection of horse meat in processed foods in Ireland started a series of test right across Europe. It’s not the first time Ireland has been caught up in a fake-food scandal. Last week fruit and veg importer Paul Begley had his
original six year sentence for smuggling garlic reduced to two years. He had imported Chinese garlic into the country labelled as
apples in a bid to evade tax. Because of heavy import tax on garlic form outside the
European Union it became very profitable to re-label garlic imported from China . A single lorry load could net as much as €20,000 in extra
profits for the smugglers. Two years before Begley was caught officials ran a
European-wide Operation Wasabi in which 2,000 shipping containers were targeted
in a bid to crack down on mislabelled fruit and veg.
But the biggest food scandal in Europe
has been the supply of olive oil marketed as being extra virgin Italian. Italy
uses and exports more olive than it produces so it imports from Spain , the EU’s
biggest producer. Cheap Spanish oil is often found to have been relabelled and
sold off as more expensive Italian olive. Europe’s worst food scandal happened in 1981 when up to
1,000 people died in Spain after cooking ill was tainted with industrial
rapeseed oil, used to dilute regular cooking oil and then sold to the public. Other favourite scams included “honey laundering” in which
honey from one country, usually China, is passed off as being local.
The packaging of farmed salmon as wild salmon has also been
detected all over the world. Food safety is a huge issue in the developing world and in
emerging countries such as Indian and China . The growth in middle class shoppers has suppliers cutting
corners in bid to cash in. In 2008, six children died and nearly 1000 were hospitalised
in China
after melamine was added to baby formula to apparently increase the protein
content. Chinese manufacturers have also been caught adding hormones
and tannery effluent to formulas. Last year New Zealand
protested after several manufactures in China was passing off their
baby-formula as being from that country.
