Anti-food fraud crime unit to be established

The new crime unit is expected to be created after Food Standards Scotland (FSS) takes over from the UK-wide Food Standards Agency (FSA) in April.

It was decided to establish the unit following the horsemeat scandal in 2013 in which beef products sold across Europe were found to contain horsemeat.

However, food fraud goes beyond unwanted horsemeat, with over 3,800 incidents of food fraud being reported to the FSA over the last three years.

An alert was issued last week over the sale of counterfeit alcohol called “Glen’s Vodka” which is offered across the UK. 236 bottles of the drink have been seized in the Moray and Highlands areas.

In addition, the FSA is investigating the contamination of cumin products with nuts – which could be fatal to nut allergy sufferers.

Professor Chris Elliott, who led the UK government inquiry into the horsemeat scandal (pictured), said there are fears peanuts and almonds are being used as cheap substitutes for cumin seeds.

A spokeswoman for FSA Scotland: “The new food body Food Standards Scotland will continue to work closely with FSA on all matters of intelligence and will share information to ensure that consumers are protected across the UK.”

Europol, Europe’s police intelligence agency, said there were record seizures of illicit and counterfeit food in 47 countries around the world as part of an operation conducted with Interpol in December and January.

Operation Opson IV found rotting seafood being coated in chemicals and sold as fresh fish as well as a factory producing fake tea and fake smoked mozzarella produced from expired dairy produce smoked over burning rubbish.

Huw Watkins head of the UK Intellectual Property Office’s intelligence hub and the UK’s lead on Operation Opson IV said in one case fake vodka containing antifreeze was being produced in Derbyshire at a site that had over 20,000 empty bottles ready to be filled and which was intended for distribution across the UK.

He said: “You have got unhygienic circumstances, people messing with industrial alcohol and, clearly, the potential there for serious harm to the public is massive.”

However, he added: “In the UK we enjoy one of the safest food regimes in the world.

“The reality is if you buy from legitimate sources and if you buy at what you expect the price to be, then it is less likely that is going to be counterfeit.”

The Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) has also participated in Operation Opson.

Lindesay Low, a legal adviser to the SWA, said fake Scotch was produced by using small amounts of genuine whisky mixed with cheap local alcohol.

He said: “Internationally, at any one time, we will have around 40-50 legal cases and several hundred investigations against companies that are selling products either called Scotch when they are not, or which are labelled in a way to suggest they are Scotch when they are not.

“We are increasingly getting with trying to share intelligence with other organisations, both in the spirits sector and also law-enforcement bodies such as Europol and Interpol, to try and take a united front against fraud.”