Poles charged after bogus Parma ham sting
PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge
29.06.2015 14:21
Two Polish citizens have been charged in connection with food fraud and violating health and safety regulations after police raided a property near Naples, southern Italy.
Photo: wikimedia commons
According to police, the suspects (both in their fifties), were boning Polish cured meat in an underground laboratory and relabelling it as Italian.
The counterfeit labels included those of renowned producers of Parma ham, a product that is protected by the EU as a traditional regional speciality.
It has been estimated that Italy loses billions of euros per year as a result of food fraud, with wine, cheese and meat among the key areas of loss.
The country's fraud squad (N.A.S) has noted that the value of fraudulent meat seized in 2014 was alone equal to EUR 143.7 million.
Investigators are currently trying to determine where the Polish meat was sold on to. (nh)
Source: Huffingtonpost.it, thelocal.it