Russian police say they have busted an worldwide ring involved in producing contraband cheese worth about 2 billion rubles ($30 million), arresting six people.
Advertisement
Authorities earlier this month started bulldozing piles of cheese, peaches and even frozen geese after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the destruction of food smuggled into the country illegally.
Authorities “foiled the activities of an organised global criminal gang in the Moscow region whose members have for a long time been engaged in smuggling sanctioned products from overseas”, police spokeswoman Yelena Alekseeva said in a statement. In a unusual twist, the cheese was affixed with fake labels of known European brands, and sold as banned foreign treats to supermarket chains and distributors around Moscow and St. Petersburg.
In a joint raid involving at least four law enforcement agencies, officers found 470 tons of banned western rennet, a substance containing enzymes used for cheese production, along with forged labels from major cheese producers, the country’s Interior Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
It said six people were arrested, but did not identify them.
The destruction has prompted criticism from some politicians and an outcry from anti-poverty campaigners, who say the food should have been given to the poor.
The gang could face fraud charges punishable by up to 10 years in jail, police said. “To prevent mass violations of people’s rights, The Prosecutor General’s Office has set up a hotline”.
Police said the ring, whose operations began in March, had been supplying “as cheese a product made from cheese rennet whose import into Russian Federation is forbidden”.
Advertisement
Small amounts of Western food brought into the country for private consumption are still permitted.
