The ＂age＂ of frozen meat smuggled into China has broken records again： the police have also seen the meat stored during World War II.
At the beginning of this year, the General Administration of Customs deployed a centralized special crackdown on key commodities including frozen products. As of June 23, the national customs has verified 420,000 tons of smuggled frozen products. In particular, Guangdong, Guangxi, Tianjin and other coastal areas have repeatedly solved major cases of smuggling frozen products worth hundreds of millions or even billions of yuan.
According to a survey conducted by Xinhua Viewpoint, these smuggled frozen products include frozen meat such as beef, chicken and pork, as well as seafood such as salmon and silver cod. Many frozen products have deteriorated due to exceeding the shelf life, and some smuggling police said that "there were even frozen products reserved by some countries for war during World War II."
Many frozen products are spoiled, and "antique-grade" frozen products were sealed in 1967.
Customs in Nanning, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Huangpu, Guangdong and other places have recently launched a special campaign to crack down on the smuggling of frozen meat, cracked two cases of smuggling frozen meat, destroyed three criminal gangs smuggling frozen meat, arrested 40 suspects and seized more than 300 tons of frozen meat on the spot. After investigation, the gang ordered a large number of frozen beef, frozen chicken, frozen pork and other frozen products abroad and smuggled them into the country through the non-established border between Guangxi and Vietnam. As of the time of the incident, this gang was suspected of smuggling 22,000 tons of frozen meat, with a case value of 500 million yuan.
Almost at the same time, Guangdong Huangpu Customs cracked a case of smuggling imported frozen products, destroyed 21 smuggling criminal gangs, arrested 37 suspects, with a case value of about RMB 3.1 billion, and seized about 300 tons of various seafood on the spot. The main suspect smuggled a large number of imported seafood such as salmon and silver cod, and his domestic customers were distributed in Guangdong, Hubei, Beijing, Zhejiang, Fujian and other provinces.
In April this year, Shenzhen Market Supervision and Inspection Bureau announced that it had seized 6,117 tons of frozen products suspected of smuggling in Shenzhen Jiaming Storage Co., Ltd., with a value of 345 million yuan. The frozen meat involved includes beef, pork, chicken and other common types of frozen meat in the market, mainly produced in the United States, Brazil, Finland, Germany and other countries. To the surprise of law enforcement officers, batches of frozen meat were spoiled due to exceeding the shelf life, and some frozen meat passed the shelf life in 2013.
At the scene of the destruction of smuggled frozen products, the reporter saw that the smuggled frozen products were all packed in cartons and wrapped in a plastic film. The box shall be marked in English, Vietnamese or traditional Chinese. On-site law enforcement officers opened a packaged frozen chicken feet. Although there were layers of plastic foam and ice, the chicken feet had obvious spots and a pungent smell.
Earlier, when Nanning police seized a batch of smuggled frozen products, they found that the packaging date printed on some chicken feet packaging bags turned out to be thirty or forty years ago, and the longest packaging date showed that it was sealed in 1967.
"In the early years, some countries smuggled frozen products reserved for the war during World War II. In recent years, international commodity inspection has become increasingly strict, and this situation has been significantly reduced. It is not excluded that a small number of frozen products with longer years have been smuggled into the country." Guangxi police told reporters a dozen private policemen.
Insiders told reporters that the shelf life of frozen products such as beef and mutton is generally 8 to 12 months in China, and some countries keep them for more than two years, and some countries need to store them for a long time as a combat readiness.
Some smuggled beef has entered high-end western restaurants, and the network platform has become a "distribution center"
The reporter found that these smuggling gangs have formed a complete chain with clear division of labor. In the extraordinarily serious case of smuggling frozen products uncovered by Huangpu Customs, the smuggling chain consists of three smuggling gangs and 18 smuggling units, some of which are responsible for smuggling products from Canada, Norway, Thailand, India and other countries by means of underreporting prices, falsely reporting commodity names and falsely reporting the nature of trade. Some are responsible for the total distribution in many places across the country; Some enter the circulation link through distributors. This network covers Dongguan, Guangzhou, Beijing, Hangzhou, Wuhan and other places, and a large number of smuggled frozen products are distributed in these areas for a long time.
According to the anti-smuggling personnel, a considerable number of smuggled frozen products have flowed into the second-and third-tier cities. Take frozen chicken feet, animal offal, etc. as an example, those with good appearance may directly flow into the trading market, while some with deterioration and odor are wholesale to small restaurants and workshops, and processed into finished products such as pickled chicken feet after deodorization.
In order to make some "not so good-looking" smuggled frozen products "look fine", criminals will do some treatment. According to insiders, the smuggled frozen chicken feet often contain a lot of bacteria and dirty blood. The criminals soak them with bleach such as hydrogen peroxide, which can prolong the shelf life and remove the stains on the surface, making the chicken feet look white, big and even heavier, usually more than 1.5 kg after soaking 1 kg of chicken feet.
Judging from the investigation by the customs anti-smuggling departments in the Pearl River Delta and other places, most of the frozen meat products imported locally are sold to the northern region, and the main targets are meat processing factories, restaurants, canteens, meat shops and stalls in institutions and schools.
Guangxi anti-smuggling police introduced that many smuggled beef entered western restaurants, especially some of the better quality beef will be sold to high-end western restaurants, and a small piece will cost three or five hundred yuan.
Online shopping platforms are increasingly becoming a "distribution center" for illegally imported frozen products. The reporter found in online shopping platforms such as Taobao that there are hundreds of sellers for "frozen chicken feet" alone, and the cheapest one is only sold in 28 yuan per kilogram. Although some sellers declare that "imported food is labeled in Chinese, which meets the requirements of the Food Safety Law", only a few sellers provide key information such as production license number and product standard number, and most of them only provide contact numbers or even manufacturer information.
A large number of smuggled "Angus beef from the United States" are sold on online platforms, and most of them are eaten by consumers’ families. Some customers even leave a message that "children like it very much".
"Smuggling agricultural and sideline products have not gone through inspection and quarantine procedures, and it is easy to contain all kinds of germs, and even does not rule out viruses such as mad cow disease, which poses a great threat to food safety." Xia Feiping, member of the Economic Committee of Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the Democratic National Construction Association, said.
Smuggling 1 ton of beef can make a profit of 20,000 to 30,000 yuan, and many links are hidden and difficult to crack down on.
The reporter’s investigation found that the main reason for the repeated prohibition of frozen goods smuggling is the huge price difference between China and foreign countries. Shenzhen public staff told reporters that the general smuggling price of Brazilian beef is about 25 yuan per kilogram, while the domestic beef price has reached 50 yuan or even higher per kilogram, and smuggling 1 ton can make a profit of 20,000 to 30,000 yuan. The purchase price of a ton of frozen chicken feet is only 4000-5000 yuan. After thawing, processing and packaging, the price of a ton is as high as 20,000 yuan.
According to anti-smuggling personnel, Guangxi and Guangdong have become the "hardest hit areas" for smuggling frozen meat. Guangxi is the most concentrated area of frozen meat smuggling. Smuggling along the Beilun River on the Sino-Vietnamese border was once rampant. The reporter once saw in the local area that smugglers transported goods into the country by digging holes in the fence and taking ladders.
Guangdong, on the other hand, is the largest place for smuggling frozen meat bulk in China. "Now there are tens of thousands of tons of cold storage in some areas of the Pearl River Delta, some of which are mainly meat and some are mainly poultry. The national trade fairs are held here, and the market influence is great. The smuggled goods are also concentrated and circulated here." A person familiar with the matter introduced.
"Frozen goods smuggling is incessant for many reasons. From the perspective of the investigation process, an important reason is that there are many links and strong concealment. For example, when smuggling, most of them are smuggled into the country where there are no checkpoints. It takes a lot of manpower and material resources to contain them. " People familiar with the matter said.
Relevant experts suggested that for smuggled frozen meat, it is necessary not only to strengthen the source control, but also to strengthen the supervision of frozen meat that has already flowed to the market, and the departments of industry and commerce, food supervision, inspection and quarantine should increase cooperation and investigation, and conduct supervision and sampling inspection for key enterprises and meat cold storage, and explore the establishment of a sound linkage supervision mechanism for frozen meat.
Liu Pinxin, a professor at the Law School of Renmin University of China, believes that it is difficult to investigate and identify the facts of food safety problems in China at present, mainly because food production enterprises have not established an honest file system. In some countries, food traceability can be realized by product number. "After establishing a file for food, smuggled food’ has no file’ and naturally’ has nowhere to hide’."