Europol seizes thousands of tonnes of fake food

[Mid]

Europol seizes thousands of tonnes of fake food
Joe Whitworth
14-Feb-2014


Europol investigaton into food fraud arrests and detains 96

Nearly 430,000 litres of counterfeit drinks and more than 1,200 tonnes of fake or substandard food have been seized as part of an EU investigation.

An Interpol-Europol operation across 33 countries in the Americas, Asia and Europe seized biscuits, chocolate, spices, cereals, dairy products and honey.

Operation Opson III led to the recovery of more than 131,000 litres of oil and vinegar, 80,000 biscuits and chocolate bars, 20 tonnes of spices and condiments, 186 tonnes of cereals, 45 tonnes of dairy products and 42 litres of honey.

96 arrested or detained

Europol said 96 people were arrested or detained with investigations continuing in many countries.

Fish and seafood was the largest category of foodstuffs seized. Some 685 tonnes were recovered for poor preservation, being incorrectly labelled and one seizure of 484,000kg of yellow fin tuna did not have the required traceability documents.

Interpol-Europol cooperation with Colombia allowed the seizure of 278 tonnes of food and 17,364 bottles of liquor with an estimated value of US$172, 809 64.

In Italy an organised crime network behind the manufacture and distribution of fake champagne was discovered, said Europol.

Material to prepare 60,000 bottles including fake labels were seized following raids on two sites, with three people arrested and 24 others reported to authorities.

The operation, through December 2013 and January 2014, and supported by the European Commission’s Directorate General for Health and Consumers.

Serious global problem

“Most people would be surprised at the everyday foods and drink which are being counterfeited, and the volume of seizures shows that this is a serious global problem,” said Michael Ellis, head of Interpol’s trafficking in illicit goods and counterfeiting unit.

“Interpol is committed to turning back this threat to public health and safety by organised criminal networks which are making millions in profits which can then be channelled into other illicit activity such as human and drug trafficking.”

In Bangkok, Royal Thai Police recovered more than 270 bottles of fake whiskey, forged stickers, labels and packaging from a warehouse.

Officials in the Philippines seized nearly 150,000 fake stock cubes, and French police identified and shut down an illegal abattoir near Paris.

Chris Vansteenkiste, project manager of Europol’s intellectual property crime team, said they see clear improvements in the fight against food fraud.

“It is important to keep the focus on this area of crime since the more information we collect, the more we realise that this illicit trade is managed and run by organised crime groups.”

foodqualitynews.com

[AsGoodAsItGets]

Sounds like a Thai story. Fake Food.

[Ratchaburi]

maybe fake rice

[Mr Lick]

Apparently most of it had already been labelled 'Tesco Value'

[Sailing into trouble]

Makes you wonder how much "Fake Food" we eat every day.

[Latindancer]

Send some of it to our fake TD posters

[Cujo]

So what are they going to do with it all?
I hope they don't destroy it but use it for famine relief or some such. It may be mislabeled but it's still food.(assuming it's not dangerous to consume)

[The Big Fella]

I said a while back that when the horse meat in burgers scandal hit the news that all it would take was a supermarket manager to grow a set of balls and simply relabel them as " Mixed meat burgers " reduce the price and they would have sold the lot. people would still have bought them if they were cheap enough, horse meat or not. they have been buying them by the millions before so have probably been eating horse for ages without any illness.

[baldrick]

buying anything at a duty free on a land border crossing in asia probably means you are buying fakes.

working on a job which involved quite a few conveyors manufactured in china and shipped for assembly onsite woke me up about things that are counterfeited .

submitted by the chinese vendor for approval by the engineering team was the data sheets and brochures for pullwire switches , belt miss alignments switches and underspeed switches of a well known western vendor.

what arrived onsite was counterfeit . it took me a little while to work this out and it was only when I was struggling to get some of the underspeed secondary units working that it occurred to me they did not exactly match the images in the manual - I had just thought they were a slightly different model.

but along with the quality of the paint , the use of gal 1/2 inch water plugs to plug unused gland ports and sundry other signs of cheapness , it occurred to me that I was not looking at the real thing.

it took me a month to convince people I was correct , and I had run ins with several senior people who had not wish for me to be correct as it would be costly in both time and money.

when the chinese company was queried , they replied that they had sent "equivalent " items . smart arse cnuts

then when chasing up the contracts department to find out how much residual was left to be paid on the contract ( normal practice ) , it was found that they had paid the full amount already.

this issue cost about 600-800k USD just for parts and not counting man hours.

[kmart]

So what are they going to do with it all?

Have a great big food-fight.