15 000 tonnes of illegal food and beverages off the market

A new targeted action within operation OPSON X focused on adulterated honey

Europol and INTERPOL coordinated operation OPSON 2020, which targeted trafficking of counterfeit and substandard food and beverage. The operation, the tenth of its kind, ran from December 2019 to June 2021 and involved law enforcement authorities from 72* countries, including 26 EU Member States. The operation was also supported by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), the European Commission Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE) and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), as well as national food regulatory authorities and private-sector partners.

Targeted action on honey in: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Portugal, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom (Scotland), the United States.

Fake honey has been in circulation since the 1970s when high-fructose corn syrup became widely available. To increase volumes and illegal profits, criminals add much cheaper corn syrup and sugarcane to genuine honey. This activity affects the market, which becomes inundated with counterfeits that are priced much lower than the genuine product. Consequently, beekeepers are forced to gradually lower the prices of genuine products. This can endanger their activities, leading them to decrease production as well as the bee populations that they maintain.

Europol requested that national authorities perform checks on illegal products that could be detected in the supply chain. Dedicated food safety authorities performed checks on the internal markets, including livestock direct sales, collection and processing of bee products, wholesale trades, distributors, deposits, street markets, retail trades and productions of ready-to-eat foods. The authorities mainly checked the analytical detection of sugar syrup and corn syrup.

Targeted action on alcohol and wine in: Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Northern Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, the United Kingdom (Scotland).

Alcohol counterfeiting remains a serious threat to consumers while negatively affecting legitimate producers. OLAF coordinated the activities targeting fraud relating to alcohol and wine.

Targeted action on horse passports and horse meat in: Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Spain.

Operation OPSON IX saw the launch of a dedicated project to support national authorities in combating the sale of illegal horse meat. This action was led by Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands and supported by DG SANTE. The follow-up activities during OPSON X led to the opening of three new investigations in EU countries.

Europol’s Intellectual Property Crime Coordinated Coalition (IPC3) coordinated OPSON IX together with INTERPOL, facilitated the information exchange and provided technical and analytical support to participating countries. Europol also organised the targeted actions.

Europol’s IPC3 is co-funded by EUIPO to combat intellectual property crime.

Counterfeit and substandard food and beverage can be found both on the physical market and sold online. The increased health risk for consumers is proportional to the reduced quality of raw materials used in the food processing system. Europol sees a recent development: low-quality products have infiltrated the food supply chain, an evolution possibly related to the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic. With more than 15 000 tonnes of illegal products seized, operation OPSON X illustrates the importance of cooperation between national authorities and the private sector in protecting consumers’ rights and the quality of the products we put on our tables.