Italy Confiscates 9 Tons of Chinese Pork on Swine Fever Fears

(Bloomberg) -- Italy’s financial police seized 9.4 tons of smuggled Chinese pork because of fears the meat could be contaminated with swine fever.

The pork products, intended for Chinese restaurants ahead of Lunar New Year celebrations, were confiscated in Italy’s northern city of Padua, the police said Wednesday. The meat violated European Union import rules and was destroyed.

The pork seizure highlights the risk that swine fever could slip into Europe via imported food as worries grow about the spread of the disease, which is deadly to hogs, but doesn’t affect humans. It can survive in meat for months.

Parts of eastern Europe have grappled to control the virus for years and it’s recently been found in wild boar near Poland’s border with Germany, the EU’s top pork producer. EU nations have built fences and stepped up security measures to keep the deadly swine virus from spreading across borders.

China’s hog industry has struggled with unprecedented outbreaks of African swine fever for more than a year, which has decimated its hog herd and spread across Asia. That’s led to surging imports of European pork, with EU exports there climbing 73% last year through November. Cases found domestically could hamper that trade.

Italy’s police acted to protect consumer health and “preserve the financial interests of the state and of the European Union,” the agency said.

--With assistance from Rudy Ruitenberg.

To contact the reporters on this story: Flavia Rotondi in Rome at rotondi@bloomberg.net;Megan Durisin in London at mdurisin1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lynn Thomasson at lthomasson@bloomberg.net, Liezel Hill

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.