main airports
Smugglers flood Londons
main airports
Bush meat sold in Londons
ethnic markets for
£10/kg is leading
smugglers to
target the capitals
airports, reports
Mike Stones
SMUGGLED meat, capable of spreading foot-and-mouth, floods into Londons airports because of a lack of manpower to tackle the problem, according to the capitals local authority environmental health officers.
"Last month alone, nearly 10t of illegal products of animal origin in 41 cargo consignments were detained at Gatwick airport," says Graham Forbes, principal environmental health officer, Crawley Borough Council. "Many were hunting trophies from Tanzania but every month up to 2t of illegal meat and fish are detained in cargo." Further supplies arrive in backage which environmental health officers have no power to search.
In cargo alone, more than 67t of illegal animal products were seized at Gatwick in 225 consignments last year.
"We know that bush meat smuggled through Gatwick, Heathrow and City airports is sold in London markets for up to £10/kg," says Mr Forbes.
One flight arriving at Gatwick within the past four months contained 4.5t of illegal meat including ostrich, donkey horse and bovine brain derivative. Most Illegal imports arrive from Nigeria, Ivory Coast and the Gambia.
Yet Mr Forbes has only eight staff to check 750 premises around Gatwick and three checking consignments in cargo sheds, he says.
Similar problems are reported at Heathrow. More than 5.5t of prohibited products of animal origin were detained in bags after 14 flights arriving at Heathrow were searched between May and October 2000, says Shabeg Nagra, divisional environmental health officer with the London Borough of Hillingdon.
"We have not got the manpower to detect illegal meat imports," he says. Current seizures are probably "only the tip of the iceberg."
Another council spokesperson confirmed that about 5.6t of animal products were seized after rountine checks on cargo consignments between June 2000 and December.
The council is discussing the problem with MAFF and the Food Standards Agency, says Mr Nagra.
At London City airport, suitcases have been found dripping blood and other liquids from smuggled meat inside, says John Averns, port of health service director with London Port Health Authority. Between 70 and 120 consignments of illegal products of animal origin were detained last year, according to Mr Averns. "Individual consignments range in size from a few kgs to up to 200kg," he says.
Closer co-operation between health officials, MAFF and Customs and Excise is needed to tackle the problem, he believes.
Rod Blessitt, environmental health officer with Newham Borough Council says: "Illegal cargoes of meat and fish mislabelled as fruit and vegetables are probably the most common form of smuggling." Products include bush rat and giant land snails and fish.
Writing in last weeks issue of Environmental Health News, Pete Rotheram, secretary of the Association of Port Heath Authorities warns that meat is hidden in fruit and vegetable imports which escape public health checks. "We can see a black hole for anyone who wants to import illegal meat," he wrote.
What MAFF says about illegal imports:
"ILLEGAL imports are by their nature always going to be difficult to detect. Nevertheless, in the course of normal surveillance of individuals entering the UK, customs do become aware of attempts to illegally import animal products from third countries. They then notify local authority officals or MAFF officials, where appropriate, who take the necessary action. In most cases this involves seizing and destroying the product."
What MAFF says about the risk:
"The reality of international travel is that many people enter the UK from countries where diseases such as foot-and-mouth are present. There is therefore always a risk that they may bring with them products which are potentially infected. It is clearly impractical to search every individual who enters the country. To address this risk, there are strict controls in the feeding of waste food products to livestock. Mammalian meat and meat products may not be fed to livestock and non mammalian meat and catering waste must be heat treated before feeding."