A European operation has spared revellers a possible meals poisoning nightmare earlier than Christmas, seizing 30 tonnes of molluscs illegally fished in polluted waters and arresting 62 suspects, authorities stated on Thursday.
Regulation enforcement in Portugal, France and Spain seized the molluscs and 6 tonnes of glass eels price as much as 10 million euros ($10.4 million) on the seafood market, Europol stated.
The delicacies can fetch as much as 25 euros per kilo (2.2 kilos), however poaching gangs exploited Asian staff by paying them only one euro per kilo of molluscs fished in contaminated Portuguese waters.
This made the case the primary confirmed crime within the European Union combining environmental offences and human trafficking for labour exploitation, Europol added in an announcement.
The gangs primarily fished Japanese clams, particularly widespread through the Christmas season on the Iberian Peninsula, and falsified the documentation to current them as match for consumption.
This might have sparked a public well being alarm as the continual consumption of contaminated molluscs places individuals prone to growing severe sicknesses together with hepatitis.
Spain-based firms imported the seafood from neighbouring Portugal and offered them with out finishing up compulsory sanitary measures to spice up their income, the Spanish Civil Guard added in an announcement.
The operation, coordinated by Europol, concerned the Civil Guard, French gendarmes and Portugal’s Nationwide Republican Guard.
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