FX.co ★ European pork disguised as marmalade and frozen mushrooms

Mutual trade barriers between Russia and the European countries enhance dramatically the volumes of contraband from the abroad under the guise of permitted goods. At present time you can hardly surprise anyone with the Belarusian shrimps, mussels or olives but pork under the guise of marmalade, mushrooms and bubble gum – is something new. The members of the Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Monitoring Service of Russia detected a well-functioning scheme of the illegal deliveries of banned pork and liquidated the criminal supply chain. The head of the Russian institution Sergey Dankvert said that the European meat was delivered to the Russian territory under the guise of frozen juices, mushrooms and other legal products. “They are party to the EU Customs Union, and so the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is directly responsible for the contents of the containers. As we can see, the EFSA has no control, and even facilitates, smuggling,” Sergey Dankvert reprimanded his foreign counterparts. The special operation managed to prevent the container delivery of more than 360t of the frozen pork from Brazil, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands and Belgium. According to the accompanying forms in the containers the frozen juices, vegetables, marmalade and bubble gum were transported. "The Netherlands, for example, declared the goods as frozen mushrooms, jams, and marmalade," stated Dankvert. In the light of the growing tension between Russia and the EU such raids are not surprising: if earlier many cases were blinked at, now the problem is taken seriously. The liquidated supply chain is the second largest contraband flow of the pork deliveries to Russia that the Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Monitoring Service of Russia announced for the last month. Earlier, the inspectors detected more than 60t of the contraband pork from Germany and the Netherlands delivered to Russia under the guise of mushrooms from China.