Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
‘FRAUDSTER WHO PUT 30 TONS OF HORSE MEAT IN BURGERS’
Scam was ‘motivated by greed’, court is told
A MEAT trader has been accused of fraudulently adding 30,000 kilos of horse to beef products. Andronicos Sideras, 55, is on trial for allegedly mixing the cuts for use as 100% beef in burgers and ready meals sold to supermarkets. Prosecutor Jon Polnay said: “It is about lying and deceiving to make money.”
A BUSINESSMAN has been accused of playing a “key role” in a plot to mix beef with cheap horsemeat.
Andronicos Sideras, 55, allegedly bulked out beef with 30,000 kilos of horse before falsifying labels to say it was “100% beef ” for ready meals and burgers. The alleged fraud came months before the 2013 horsemeat scandal that led to thousands of products being pulled from the shelves of major supermarkets. Opening the trial yesterday, prosecutor Jonathan Polnay told jurors: “It will be apparent that for the fraud to work it needed someone to carry out the physical mixing of the meats. “It needed someone to fix the documents, to make them look genuine. That key role was taken by this defendant.” Mr Polnay told jurors that Danish firm Flexifoods bought a type of horsemeat called trim from suppliers across Europe. It then arranged for it to be delivered to Sideras – one of the owners of meat firm Dinos & Sons in Tottenham, North admitted their part in the crime, the jury at Inner London crown court was told. The men were first arrested in 2013 as part of an investigation by the City of London Police. Mr Polnay added: “There is no dispute that this fraud was going on – the sole question you are going to need to decide is whether Mr Sideras was involved in it.” The prosecutor said three consignments “openly sold and therefore labelled as horsemeat” and amounting to 30,000 kilos were sent to Dinos on June 7, October 19 and October 29, 2012. Mr Polnay continued: “I’m not saying that’s an offence – it’s what happened to it afterwards.” He alleged the firm was paid a packing cost, listed as a “sundry charge”’ in its invoice, for mixing beef and horsemeat. Sideras, of Southgate, North London, denies conspiracy to defraud between January 1 and November 30, 2012. Nielsen, of Gentofte, near Copenhagen, and Beech, of Hull, will be sentenced after the case. The trial continues.