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posted by cmn32480 on Monday July 17 2017, @05:04PM   Printer-friendly
from the you-are-what-you-eat dept.

After becoming somewhat used to food scares from China, now we have sleazy operators in Europe too.

From the ABC News article:

Authorities have arrested at least 66 people in a European food scam which sold horse meat unfit for human consumption.

European Union police coordinating organization Europol announced Sunday that eight nations cooperated in the operation. In Spain, 65 people face a series of charges relating to public health, money laundering and animal abuse.

The operation took several months and the chief suspect, a Dutch businessman, was arrested in Belgium in April.

Spain's Civil Guard said that the criminal ring acquired horses in Spain and Portugal that were "in poor shape, old, or had been designated 'not apt for consumption.'" After falsifying paperwork and substituting microchips used to identify the horses, the animals were slaughtered and the meat shipped to Belgium.

The Civil Guard said that the profits from the illegal meat could reach 20 million euros ($23 million) a year.

The case was linked to a 2013 scandal when Irish authorities detected beef burgers containing horse meat.

Is it still safe to consume Soylent?

Additional details at CNN.


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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @05:11PM (16 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @05:11PM (#540404)

    Remind me. Why are we paying these people to "protect" us?

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Hartree on Monday July 17 2017, @05:42PM

    by Hartree (195) on Monday July 17 2017, @05:42PM (#540426)

    Maybe it was a bit slow, but they did detect it and arrested a bunch of people presumably responsible.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by unauthorized on Monday July 17 2017, @06:12PM (14 children)

    by unauthorized (3776) on Monday July 17 2017, @06:12PM (#540440)

    Because if you didn't, these people would still be selling that crap with no regulatory organs to discover the deception.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @06:23PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @06:23PM (#540449)

      Logic and reason don't work on people like OP, it only solidifies their opinion that all other people are idiots who can't see that government is the cause of all our problems.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @06:29PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @06:29PM (#540456)

        Your parent's reply fails logic and reason, as pointed out here [soylentnews.org].

        • (Score: 3, Touché) by davester666 on Tuesday July 18 2017, @05:47AM (1 child)

          by davester666 (155) on Tuesday July 18 2017, @05:47AM (#540806)

          Yeah, the free market will totally prevent this happening, because mumble mumble somthing whatamacallit. It just will goddammit.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @10:58AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @10:58AM (#540895)

            Contracts, it's contracts, force, monopoly, etc. That's why!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @06:25PM (7 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @06:25PM (#540452)

      You cannot say that there would be "no regulatory organ to discover the deception"; that doesn't follow logically.

      That is to say: There's no proof that government is necessary or even optimal for providing such a service.

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by unauthorized on Monday July 17 2017, @06:41PM (3 children)

        by unauthorized (3776) on Monday July 17 2017, @06:41PM (#540467)

        You cannot say that there would be "no regulatory organ to discover the deception"; that doesn't follow logically.

        Okay smartass, I shall revise my statement for those like yourself who are compulsively incapable of exercising good faith:

        "It is extremely likely that there will be no regulatory organ given that despite the abundant examples of stateless societies in human history, none have been able to sustain a large scale functioning lawful society over an appreciable period of time".

        In before "but TRUE COMMUNISM CAPITALISM has never been tried!".

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @07:03PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @07:03PM (#540483)

          It's what has made modern society so remarkably successful, despite the parasite that is government.

          • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday July 17 2017, @07:47PM (1 child)

            by bob_super (1357) on Monday July 17 2017, @07:47PM (#540518)

            True Capitalism gets you meat that food experts would call improper for consumption, but is offered to you at whatever price people believe will make you grab it off the shelves. You are responsible for paying your doctor's bill, then running your own studies to prove the meat did it, then decide to withdraw your financial support from companies selling you crap (selling dangerous crap is perfectly legal, obviously).

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @05:05AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @05:05AM (#540791)

              Grab that meat! Grab and grab and grab!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @11:03AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @11:03AM (#540897)

        You cannot say that there would be "no regulatory organ to discover the deception"; that doesn't follow logically.

        That is to say: There's no proof that government is necessary or even optimal for providing such a service.

        We can look at one unregulated market operating in our society and see if it's better: drugs. How's that working out with out?

        • (Score: 2) by t-3 on Tuesday July 18 2017, @04:04PM

          by t-3 (4907) on Tuesday July 18 2017, @04:04PM (#540988)

          Drugs are extremely regulated; only a handful of companies can legally manufacture or distribute them, and only licensed doctors can prescribe them to patients who must go to licensed pharmacies or hospitals to obtain them. Out doesn't get much more regulated than that. The problem with "street drugs" containing potentially dangerous filler and cut is a direct result of this intense regulation. If a company could legally sell drugs to consumers, they could also legally provide quality guarantees and proper dosage instructions, tools, and facilities, which would make the process much safer, not to mention generate jobs, money, and help keep addicts from dropping out of society into a poverty/addiction/crime feedback loop.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 18 2017, @05:39PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 18 2017, @05:39PM (#541046) Journal

          We can look at one unregulated market operating in our society and see if it's better: drugs.

          Have to agree with the other replier. You couldn't have picked a worse example except for government itself. For example, the US still has the death penalty on the books as a punishment for large scale illegal drug dealing. And on the legal side, it is not unusual for drug companies to spend hundreds of millions of dollars merely testing drugs to meet regulatory hurdles.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 17 2017, @09:37PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 17 2017, @09:37PM (#540584) Journal

      Because if you didn't, these people would still be selling that crap with no regulatory organs to discover the deception.

      Offal, my dear... in the context of meat and butchery, we don't speak of organs, we use the offal term.

      (grin)

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday July 18 2017, @08:09AM

      by driverless (4770) on Tuesday July 18 2017, @08:09AM (#540869)

      selling that crap

      It's interesting to note that the article doesn't distinguish between "bad meat" and "horse meat". What they did wrong was sell meat unfit for human consumption, the question of which type of meat it was being irrelevant. The article mentions that they were "substituting microchips used to identify the horses", so presumably they sold bad horse meat as good horse meat.