RM1b fake and harmful food items seized

THE HAGUE: European police have seized almost 10,000 tonnes of fake and harmful food and drinks, from caviar to cashews, booze to bubbly water and even unassuming stock cubes.
Some €230 million (RM1.09 billion) worth of "potentially harmful" counterfeit food products and 26 millions litres of beverages were seized in a four-month joint Europol and Interpol operation involving 61 countries, the two agencies said on Tuesday.
In total, 13 million items were seized and 13 people arrested during 50,000 checks carried out at shops, markets, airports, seaports and industrial estates from Dec 1 to March 31 in the sixth such annual operation.
During the operation dubbed Opson VI, German police cracked down on undeclared peanuts, cashew nuts and almonds mixed into imported hazelnut spreads and not labelled, which could have posed dangers for people with allergies.
"This operation has once again shown that criminals will fake any type of food and drink with no thought to human (risks) as long as they make a profit," said Interpol coordinator Francoise Dorcier.
In France, police seized 179,000 counterfeit seasoning stock cubes while in Tuscany, Italian police raided an organised group producing counterfeit red wine in a farmhouse.
In a new trend, they also flushed out 31,000 bottles of mineral water, imitating a registered brand, in a separate operation.
Investigations took a fishy turn in Portugal, where in a warehouse in Porto, thousands of cans of almost expired sardines in tomato sauce were uncovered. Some 311,000 cans were seized with 9,900 packing boxes, and the business was immediately shut down.
Some 530kg of dodgy clams "unfit for human consumption" were also found in Spain, while in Denmark, investigators uncovered several samples of supposed virgin olive oil which did not conform to their labelling.
More than 1,300 litres of vodka and whisky were seized in two illegal sites in Greece, and a large quantity of unrefrigerated, unpacked and unlabelled meat was tracked down, with alcohol and tobacco, in Ireland.
"Opson VI confirmed the threat that food fraud represents, as it affects all types of products and all regions of the world," said Europol's head of intellectual property crime Chris Vansteenkist. — AFP