Tag Archives: smuggling

Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Food Fraud Quick Bites

The Interrupted Supply Chain Of Crocus Sativus

By Susanne Kuehne
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Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Saffron, food fraud
Find records of fraud such as those discussed in this column and more in the Food Fraud Database, owned and operated by Decernis, a Food Safety Tech advertiser. Image credit: Susanne Kuehne.

Iran is producing the lion share of saffron, the most precious spice, worldwide. One kilogram of saffron requires weeks of backbreaking work and the manual processing of around 170,000 flowers. Smuggling of what is also called “Red Gold”, and fraudulent and counterfeit saffron, are now million-dollar endeavors, as revealed by Europol and other investigations. From illegal food dyes like lead chromate, to herbs, to corn-on-the-cob strings, saffron is adulterated in many ways to enable fraudsters a participation in this $500 million market.

Resource

  1. Milmo, C. (January 22, 2022). “Saffron: How the lustre of Iran’s ‘red gold’ is threatened by smuggling and counterfeiting as sanctions bite”. iNews.
Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Food Fraud Quick Bites

You Can See Right Through This Fraud

By Susanne Kuehne
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Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Food fraud, glass eel
Find records of fraud such as those discussed in this column and more in the Food Fraud Database, owned and operated by Decernis, a Food Safety Tech advertiser. Image credit: Susanne Kuehne

European law enforcement worked across several European countries to discover a vast glass eel smuggling operation worth $1.5 million. Glass eels are wild baby eels, which are becoming increasingly rare. Glass eels are highly priced in Asian markets, for example for aquaculture farms. Smuggling these protected species is a lucrative business in Europe, since it is illegal to export eels. This is just the tip of the iceberg: The glass eel trafficking business is estimated to have grown to more than $3 billion in size over the past few years.

Resource

  1. Taylor, P. (June 7, 2021). “Major glass eel trafficking ring taken down by EU op”. Securing Industry.

 

Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Food Fraud Quick Bites

Four Decades Of Food Fraud

By Susanne Kuehne
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Susanne Kuehne, Decernis
Malaysian beach
Find records of fraud such as those discussed in this column and more in the Food Fraud Database. Image credit: Susanne Kuehne

For more than 40 years, a syndicate of bribed government and custom officials and slaughterhouses did lucrative business by smuggling fake halal meat into Malaysia. The meat originated in unapproved slaughterhouses in several countries that produced not halal-certified and low-grade meat from a variety of animals. This scandal was a setback on Malaysia’s goal to become one of the world’s main halal meat exporters, which is a multi-billion dollar business.

Resource

  1. South China Morning Post. (December 30, 2020). “Malaysian cartel allegedly sold fake halal meat to Muslims for 40 years”.