FRANCE – Police have seized 17,000 phony COVID-19 testing kits found in raids against illicit food and drink items throughout lots of nations, Interpol stated Wednesday.
Officials took $40 million (345 million euros) worth of phony or low quality products in 77 countries, and arrested 407 individuals in the operation, performed from December 2019 to June 2020.
EXCLUSIVE: ‘ Unlawfully’ imported chloroquine probed
The products included infected dairy items, meat from unlawfully slaughtered animals and food incorrectly identified as medical remedies, stated Interpol, based in the southeastern French city of Lyon.
However police also obstructed countless phony medical products as nations around the world rushed to secure products while locking down to cut the coronavirus pandemic.
READ: SA company aims to plug COVID-19 test sets lack as virus spreads
” As nations worldwide continue their efforts to contain COVID-19, the criminal networks distributing these possibly harmful products show just their decision to earn a profit,” the company’s secretary basic Jurgen Stock stated in a statement.
Besides the phony COVID-19 tests, the raids uncovered disinfectants and even a shipment of seafood in South Africa, originating from Asia, that was wrongly stated as individual protective devices.
” Other illicit products recuperated consisted of cosmetics, shoes, clothes, bags, cars and truck parts, electronics, tobacco and medications, worth an estimated $3.1 million,” Interpol said.
It was the company’s ninth year of coordinated Opson raids against fake or substandard food and beverage, which frequently take countless tons of phony and possibly damaging items.
Comments
Post a Comment