Huge New Horsemeat Scandal uncovered

[ART]

Perhaps this won't get around to affecting consumers in the UK this time but a huge overnight operation by the police has uncovered a immense new trafficking of HORSEMEAT here in France

Illegal horsemeat Operators have been found in 11 departments still processing horsemeat to be sold as BEEF.

I think we all knew last years scandal was the tip of the iceberg, but with Christmas undergoing, there will be many trying to make a killing. EAT BRITISH AND UNPROCESSED MEAT ONLY

 

http://www.europe1.fr/Faits-divers/Trafic-de-viande-de-cheval-une-vingtaine-d-interpellations-1743679/

 

Translated from French by IMTRANSLATOR

 

Traffic horsemeat: twenty arrests

 

By Marc-Antoine Bindler with Peter and Benjamin Pascal Berthelot and AFP

 

Published December 16, 2013 at 7:16 Updated December 16, 2013 at 10:12 am

HORSE: Sick Carcasses used

 

 

Hundreds of horses used by the pharmaceutical industry would have been in the food circuit.

 

INFO. From the pharmaceutical industry to the food, the horses passed the state of guinea pigs than victuals. An extensive police operation was triggered on Monday morning in 11 French departments in the course of an investigation against traffic horse meat and meat wholesale. Investigations conducted by the research section (CT) Languedoc-Roussillon in the conduct of a judge in Marseille aim marketing of meat of horses that have previously been used to search for pharmaceutical companies and laboratories, as well as horses equestrian centers that are also found in the consumer's plate, said a source close to the investigation.

 

Hundreds of horses involved. The case concerns several hundred horses allegedly involved in scientific programs between 2010 and 2012. The animals were used in particular by the pharmaceutical company Sanofi, on his Alba-la-Romaine site in the Ardèche, before ending up in the food chain after falsification or retraction of their veterinary records. This is an anonymous denunciation end of 2012 to the Aude towards protecting people who triggered the investigation today conducted as part of a judicial inquiry headed by a judge of the health center court Marseille.

 

 

Twenty arrests expected. Monday morning, hundreds of police acting in the south of France, Languedoc-Roussillon, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur and Midi-Pyrenees, began to question twenty people , Has to sources close to the investigation. The police have arrested a man and Narbonne in the Aude, apparently at his home before taking him to the site of slaughterhouses in the city could find the offices of his company. It is precisely a trader Narbonne which is suspected of being the organizer of traffic, according to a source close to the investigation. These inquiries should be accompanied by raids on the headquarters of meat traders and, to a lesser extent, in slaughterhouses, with the participation of the National Brigade of veterinary and phytosanitary surveys. Research has also been conducted into the premises of Sanofi and a slaughterhouse in Girona, in Spain, on the other side of the border, said one source.

 

Falsified documents. At the end of their use by laboratories, carcasses of horses would normally be incinerated. Problem: The cost of this operation is high. According to our information, the laboratory animals sold for ten euros a trader. The latter was then a great deal by selling himself to the beast a slaughterhouse at a price between 500 and 800 euros. For this, the documents enabling the traceability of horses were falsified: a forger located in the Alpes de Haute-Provence and have helped establish many false documents. Veterinary three accomplices from Gard, Drôme and Cantal are in turn believed to have contributed to the "bleaching" of horses. According to preliminary results, all these operations have been carried out without the knowledge of Sanofi. For now, however, the company refused to comment on the dangers of consuming horse meat from their laboratories.

 

 

 

. Investigated and two tracks All these elements are the latest development of a broad survey of horse theft and trafficking in equestrian centers: saddle horses that are found in our food, something completely prohibited. Prosecutors in Marseille investigating 3,000 cases in all of France. "The horse riding school in particular for example, which would end his life peacefully in a meadow and which ends at the slaughterhouse when he received medication unfit for consumption had been making," said a source close to the investigation, "and then the horse had laboratory with two cases. Either he used to take blood samples for the manufacture of vaccines, or it was the guinea pig in research." "This does not mean that there was a risk to the consumer, but anyway, these horses should never have to be in the consumer's plate," she has said.

[buctootim]

Perhaps this won't get around to affecting consumers in the UK this time but a huge overnight operation by the police has uncovered a immense new trafficking of HORSEMEAT here in France

 

Serious question Art. Don't the French still eat horsemeat? They used to a lot, we even got served horse steaks during a school trip to Le Havre - and any way isnt the price of horse and beef broadly similar?

[suewhistle]

Serious question Art. Don't the French still eat horsemeat? They used to a lot, we even got served horse steaks during a school trip to Le Havre - and any way isnt the price of horse and beef broadly similar?

 

They certainly do, as they do in Italy (and I've even bought horse escalopes in an Italian Lidl), and the price is certainly no lower than beef.

If it has been claimed to be beef perhaps that is to avoid checks on potential veterinary residues more likely to be in horse?