Police officers conducted 17 searches in the warehouses, offices and apartments used by the group and found 470 tons of the rennet, as well as equipment for printing fake labels, the statement said.
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Authorities were enforcing a 2014 Kremlin ban on Western cheese and other agricultural products that was imposed in retaliation for U.S. and European Union sanctions over Russia’s role in Ukraine’s conflict.
The country’s national agricultural oversight agency has, in recent weeks, publicized the destruction of products including cheese. As of last week, over 8,300 tons of food were destroyed in front of state TV cameras.
In addition, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree authorizing the destruction of food imports banned under the current embargo, which was renewed Aug. 6.
The latest police move involved cheese worth about 2bn roubles (£19.4m).
The criminals in Russian Federation fixed the products up with bogus labels of famous foreign producers and flogged in supermarkets in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
“Unscrupulous suppliers are importing these products without quality compliance checks or compliance with transportation and storage conditions, which can make them dangerous to citizens’ health”, prosecutors said in a statement.
Police also said the investigation was ongoing and that they were trying to identify other members of the ring, as well as consumers who could have purchased the contraband cheese. In a small town in Tatarstan, police and prosecutors released a video of three frozen geese of suspect origin being seized with high ceremony from a local shop, taken to a field and driven over with a bulldozer.
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According to the Moscow Times, the TV channel Zvezda, run by the Defense Ministry, reports that officials have euthanized and burned 50 ducklings that were smuggled in from Ukraine.
