"It stinks, a whole carriage, and I almost threw up when I opened the door." Zhang Tao (pseudonym), a police officer of Changsha Customs Anti-smuggling Bureau, said.
It is understood that 20 people were arrested in these two cases, including 17 Hunan nationals, 2 Guangxi nationals and 1 Guangdong nationals.
On the same day, three cold storages were found in Changsha * * * for storing these smuggled frozen products, with a total area of about 3000 square meters. A large number of frozen products with foreign languages written on their packages are piled up in the cold storage. The frozen products smuggled by Li were stored in two of the cold storages, and distributed to Hunan Province 14 cities and counties and all over the country through the facade of Hongxing cold storage in Changsha.
Red Star Cold Storage, which covers an area of 180 mu, is the largest wholesale market of frozen products in Hunan and the main distribution center of frozen products in Hunan Province. According to the conservative statistics of Changsha Customs, about 1/3 of the annual throughput of 800,000 tons of frozen products in Hongxing Cold Storage is frozen products from abroad with unknown sources.
The invention of freezing technology was originally to ensure the freshness of food. However, the reporter learned that the production date on some smuggled frozen meat packages shows that the "meat age" is as long as thirty or forty years. In June, during the special action of the Customs to crack down on the smuggling of frozen meat, a group of post-80s frozen meat older than him was investigated by anti-smuggling personnel at a port in Guangxi.
Experts told reporters that the quality of frozen meat for many years will be worse than that of fresh meat, but as long as there is no thawing phenomenon during the freezing process, it is difficult to distinguish from the appearance and taste. However, the transportation conditions of smuggled meat are bad, and it is easy to breed all kinds of bacteria in the process of continuous thawing, or even start to rot and refreeze, and its hygiene and safety and food quality are unimaginable.
These meats of unknown origin enter food stalls, restaurants and even regular supermarkets through wholesale markets. With the rise of fresh e-commerce, some online platforms have also become their potential sales channels. After pickled in soy sauce and seasoned with pepper, some of these meats are made into bagged cooked food, and some have evolved into "delicacies" on the table, which is difficult for consumers to distinguish.
The "chicken feet with pickled peppers" that many people like to eat is the "hardest hit" for smuggling frozen products. Insiders told reporters that some "delicious" chicken feet are even tens of years old, which may be from foreign countries. The criminals soaked them with bleach such as hydrogen peroxide, making them look chubby, white and tender, and "selling" is particularly good.
According to the survey, Li and his family smuggled at least hundreds of tons of pig feet and chicken feet into Hunan in the past year, and then distributed them to all parts of the country through the facade of Red Star Cold Storage. According to the latest inspection and quarantine access list of meat products of AQSIQ, China only allows beef imports from Australia, New Zealand, Uruguay, Argentina, Canada, Costa Rica, Chile and Hungary. Smuggled beef not imported from these countries generally sells for a catty in 20 yuan, while the fresh beef market averages a catty in 40 yuan.
From the case of Hunan, the huge profits prompted unscrupulous businessmen to take risks, and eventually formed a frozen goods smuggling chain with foreign shipments, Hong Kong consolidation, Vietnam transit, Sino-Vietnamese border "ant moving" smuggling and Changsha receiving goods.
According to relevant personnel, the most common smuggling route is: smugglers purchase goods from overseas at low prices, send them to Hong Kong in containers, and then send them to Haiphong, Vietnam, dismantle them at Mang Street on the Sino-Vietnamese border, and hire border people to "move ants" to transport frozen products to China. A 35-ton container of frozen goods can be moved by dozens of border residents in an hour or two.
Due to the high transportation cost of refrigerated trucks, smugglers use ordinary cars to transport frozen products from Nanning to Changsha. After a journey of 12 hours, these goods have just thawed, and some have even begun to rot and stink. The frozen products that arrived in Changsha were moved into the cold storage and cooled again, and then sent to all parts of Hunan, Guangdong, Sichuan, Chongqing and other places.
It is understood that many shops in the Red Star Cold Storage mix domestic meat with imported meat for sale, and it is often seen that frozen boxes with various foreign language signs are transported to various places by trucks. "If you want to buy meat with quarantine certificate, buy domestic meat, and if you want to buy cheap meat, buy imported meat." A businessman said bluntly.
What is even more shocking is that the chain of smuggling frozen meat involves many places. In the special operation in June, after preliminary investigation, it was found that since 20 15 1 month, 2 1 smuggling gangs, including Chen Mou, Huang, Wen in Panyu, Guangdong, and Liu in Dalian, Liaoning, have taken orders for the import of frozen products from shippers in Beijing, Tianjin, Chongqing, Henan, Guangdong and other places.
Not long ago, Huanggang Customs and Luohu Customs launched a special investigation on frozen products and seafood in the immigration hall of Futian Port, and even found that water passengers smuggled frozen products and seafood into the country by using suitcases and backpacks. Cui, who has been engaged in beef trade for a long time, told the Beijing News that this kind of aged frozen meat is mostly foreign strategic reserve materials, mainly in the United States. In the replacement of storage materials, some aged beef began to circulate to the market. "After long-term frozen storage, the surface area of beef has begun to oxidize and blacken, so it will not be sold directly to consumers as frozen meat. However, after being treated by the cooking methods of marinating and frying in restaurants, it can cover up the appearance of beef, and the taste is almost the same as that of normal beef, which is difficult for ordinary consumers to distinguish.
It is understood that due to the need of strategic reserve and stable price, countries will take the initiative to freeze and store a large amount of meat. According to the "Measures for the Management of Central Reserve Meat" promulgated by China in 2007, frozen pork is stored for 3 rounds every year in principle, and each round is stored for about 4 months; Frozen beef and mutton are not rotated in principle, and each round is stored for about 8 months.
"The shelf life of frozen products such as beef and mutton is generally 8 months to 12 months in China, and it shall not be thawed after the expiration. However, other countries in the world have a longer preservation time, generally up to 2 years. " Gao Guan, Deputy Secretary-General of China Meat Association, told the Beijing News reporter that although countries have detailed regulations on the shelf life of frozen meat, the management level of cold storage is also uneven, and not all standards are strictly enforced.
In fact, the figure of aged strategic reserve meat has also appeared repeatedly in the world. In 20 10, the Economic Security Bureau of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs cracked a smuggling case of meat products in Belgorod. During the Cold War, "war meat" stored and frozen for more than 30 years was smuggled into Russia from the United States, Brazil, Belgium and Canada through Ukraine. Criminal gangs have been engaged in this activity for several years. After the publication of "zombie meat", it also caused many questions. Some consumers on the Internet said that the storage and freezing costs for more than 40 years even exceeded the value of frozen meat itself, and there was no need to make great efforts to smuggle it into China.
A person from the Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau told the Beijing News that the storage cost of this strategic reserve meat is very low, which is different from the need to consider warehousing and electricity charges for profit-making cold storage. The converted frozen cost of meat stored as combat readiness materials is about per ton 17 yuan/year.
It is also the low storage cost and price that gave birth to the market upsurge of smuggling expired aged meat. The source said that beef with a price lower than 30-40 yuan was suspected. In the international market of expired meat, China, where the sales of meat products have increased significantly, bears the brunt. In fact, the smuggling case of "zombie meat" cracked by Changsha Customs is not the first time. 20 14 10, Changsha Industrial and Commercial Bureau inspected Hunan Hongxing Frozen Food Co., Ltd. and seized 25.3 tons of animal products such as pig's belly, chicken feet and pig's feet, most of which exceeded the shelf life of 24 months. Some imported frozen meat did not have customs clearance certificates and were suspected of smuggling.
Since June 24, Beijing News reporters have visited many vegetable markets and meat wholesale markets in Dongcheng and Fengtai, Beijing, and found that the Beijing market generally supplies cold meat, but rarely sells frozen products. A number of merchants said that the meat sold is freshly slaughtered and there is no frozen meat. Therefore, aged frozen meat is hard to see in the retail market.
So, where is the "zombie meat"? The Beijing News reporter learned that smuggled meat has formed a complete industrial chain of reprocessing and distribution, with the focus shifted to second-and third-tier cities.
"After entering the customs from Hong Kong, smuggled meat is mainly sold to Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and other provinces and cities, and the target customers are small restaurants." An insider close to the distribution channel told reporters that the import price of such expired frozen meat is very cheap and there is no inspection report. In order to avoid quarantine supervision, distribution will also avoid first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, and focus on supplying restaurants in second-and third-tier cities. "This kind of meat has been stored for too long, and water will be injected to keep the appearance shiny. When touched by hand, the surface has a sticky feeling."
In this smuggling sales network, a rigorous model of stagnation team and interlocking has been formed. The source said that smuggled meat was transported from abroad to ports such as Hong Kong, and then cleared into distribution cities such as Guangzhou. After being divided and refreezed, it was sold to various channels across the country. At the same time, factories and freezers are often built in remote suburbs. During transportation, several teams take different routes, and each location and link is met by counterparts and sold directly to hotels and restaurants.
Lin, another person in charge of a Hong Kong trading company engaged in the import of Uruguayan beef, also told the Beijing News reporter that "zombie meat" stored for 30 or 40 years is actually rare in the industry, and it will only flow out when it is counted in some foreign cold storage. Frozen meat that exceeds the shelf life1~ 2 years is the most demanding in the market. According to him, the import and export meat trade cycle is long and the transaction volume is huge. Once the backlog expires, a large number of dealers will come to the door and "propose to buy it all at a price of 40% ~ 50% or even lower." A number of food safety testing institutions and experts told the Beijing News reporter that using technical means, the sensory and microbial indicators of meat can generally be tested to determine whether it is expired, but it is difficult to directly determine the actual storage age of aged frozen meat.
The existing inspection standards for meat products in China are GB2707-2005 Hygienic Standards for Fresh (Frozen) Livestock Meat, GB/T 1723-2008 Hygienic Standards for Frozen Cut Beef, etc. Among them, the detection of meat products focuses on sensory indicators such as color, viscosity and smell, technical inspection indicators such as thawing water loss rate of frozen poultry and volatile base nitrogen content, and microbial indicators such as total number of colonies, coliform bacteria and salmonella.
Nan Qingxian, a professor at China Agricultural University and chairman of the Agricultural Products Storage and Processing Branch of China Agricultural Society, said that the surface of aged frozen meat will turn yellow, brown or even oxidized black during long-term storage, and the nutrition in its fleshy cells has already lost and the fiber quality has also changed. However, "it is difficult to guarantee the storage environment in import smuggling. Once the car reaches the thawing condition above 0℃, the frozen meat will quickly breed bacteria and lead to corruption. At this time, even if it is frozen again, there are still a lot of bacteria harmful to the human body in the meat. "
Food and Drug Administration of Jiangxi, Guangdong, Heilongjiang, Anhui, Chongqing and other provinces and cities have launched special rectification for "zombie meat". Wholesale markets, large-scale frozen food warehouses and catering enterprises focus on checking whether the source of frozen meat is legal and whether it exceeds the shelf life.