BEIJING: Authorities seized a vast amount of frozen “zombie meat” up to 40 years old after a nationwide clampdown on meat smuggling gangs.
More than 20 smuggling rings were targeted by Chinese customs authorities, and a total of 3 billion yuan (59.3 billion yen or $483 million) worth of illegal meat was seized, accounting for more than 100,000 tons of chicken wings, drumsticks, beef and other meat products.
In one bust in Hunan province, the meat products were smuggled back into the nation via Vietnam after being stored in Hong Kong. Some of the meat was refrozen after it thawed and rotted after being transported in freezerless vehicles for part of the journey.
The discovery of food hazardous to health often occurs in China, but reports that some of the seized meat products were produced in the 1970s and 1980s according to labels on the packaging have shocked the nation.
The illegal meat products were originally produced abroad in countries such as the United States and Brazil. Details on why the meat was preserved for so long are unknown, but the speculation in the media is that “they may have come from meat stocked for times of war.”
The market price of beef in China averages about 80 yuan per kilogram, but the seized meat was being sold for about half the standard rate. Investigators believe the faulty meat products were distributed to supermarkets and restaurants across the nation, including those in major cities such as Beijing, Tianjin and Chongqing, and in the highly populated provinces of Henan, Sichuan, Hunan, and Guangdong.
