Five held over horses ‘not fit for human consumption’

FIVE horse dealers and traders have been arrested for allegedly putting horse meat that was ‘unfit for human consumption’ into the international food chain.

Specialist officers from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation arrested five men, aged between 35 and 55, ‘for the offence of participation in a criminal organisation’, gardaí said. They can be held for seven days. The arrests follow a two-year investigation which involved the Criminal Assets Bureau, the Department of Agriculture and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. They also follow raids at farms, houses and a commercial premises in Roscommon, Leitrim, Sligo, Westmeath and Kilkenny in June last year.

While horse meat is not normally eaten in Ireland, it is legal for the animals to be slaughtered here for human consumption elsewhere – and our predominant market is France, sources say.

Gardaí suspect that criminals were ‘duping’ genuine slaughterhouses by falsely assigning ‘healthy’ microchips to horses that were unfit to be consumed by humans.

Security sources say some horses that may have been elderly or unwell, rendering them worthless, could have entered into the food chain and been exported.

The searches carried out in June of last year were aimed at assessing the extent of this fraud, which is understood to be lucrative.

Security sources stressed that some individuals or businesses at the centre of last summer’s searches, were blameless and had been conned by criminals involved in horse dealing and trading.