Story by Tu Thanh Ha as published on The Globe and Mail
Fasen Meat Trading purchased 26 tons of frozen Canadian horse meat
A new Canadian link has been established in Europe’s horse-meat scandal.
Tons of low-grade Canadian horse meat were purchased and passed off as halal beef by the Dutch businessman who is now in custody as French authorities investigate the scandal in which horse meat from Romania wound up labelled as ground beef.
Last year, French consumers affairs minister Benoît Hamon confirmed that government inspectors were investigating the links between Draap and the French food processor Spanghero.
According to Agence France-Presse, Mr. Fasen was placed in custody on April 8 and is being formally investigated for fraud.
Mr. Fasen’s lawyer, Jérôme Triomphe, told AFP that his client voluntarily turned up for questioning and added that he denied the charges.
According to a 2012 decision by a court in Breda, in the Netherlands, Mr. Fasen was involved in a previous case of meat-labelling fraud.
Previous media coverage of that Breda judgment mentioned that the horse meat came from Mexico and Brazil, but didn’t detail that part of the bogus beef came from Canada.
The ruling does not identify the defendant but a Dutch official confirmed to The Globe and Mail that it was one of Mr. Fasen’s companies, Fasen Meat Trading.
On Oct. 26, 2007, Fasen Meat Trading purchased 26 tons of frozen Canadian horse meat, the ruling said.
A few days later, the court decision said, Fasen Meat Trading delivered to a French food company in Normandy 22 tons of what it labelled as halal beef.
In fact, about half of that shipment was frozen Canadian horse meat, according to the ruling.
In August of 2008, Fasen Meat Trading sold nearly 24 tons of halal beef to a French manufacturer but, the ruling said, part of it again came from a batch of low-grade Canadian horse meat.
“The court takes these allegations very seriously,” the judgment said, adding that the defendant deceived consumers “for a long period, in an organized, crafty manner.”
While the ruling was supposed to have redacted out the name of the Canadian company, one paragraph was mistakenly left, saying that the meat’s origin was “Canada Naturel VF Inc. Est. 519.”
Establishment 519 was the the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s identifier for a processing plant located in Wolseley, Sask., belonging to Natural Valley Farms Inc.
NVF was a meat packer headquartered in Neudorf, Sask.
It was initially licensed in June, 2006, as a cattle abattoir but the following year it obtained a licence for slaughtering horses.
According to the Dutch court judgment, Fasen Meat Trading was dissolved in December of 2008. Earlier that year, Draap Trading was incorporated in Cyprus.
Mr. Fasen appealed the Breda court decision, which imposed a one-year sentence on him.
In May of 2013, an appellate court reduced the penalty to a €50,000 ($75,000) fine and a six-month suspended sentence.
In Canada, the NVF was facing troubles, too.
The CFIA suspended the company’s licence in December, 2008, because of “ineffective implementation of food safety monitoring and verification systems.”
After leasing its slaughterhouse to Cavel, NVF eventually shut down.
Follow on Twitter: @TuThanhHa
Related articles
Categories: Horse News, Horse Slaughter
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
Reblogged this on spiritandanimal.wordpress.com.
LikeLike
The Same Garbage that was In Illinois, went to Canada and is involved in Scandal. What have WE been saying ALL along? Wonder why we Illinoisians were Dead set Against it? This says the Rest of the Story!
LikeLike
American’s need to push the passage of the SAFE ACT to make sure our horses are not transported to Canada and Mexico for slaughter and export. There is NO integrity in our food sources and this will help make sure that tainted horsemeat does not hit our food sources….America’s horses are not raised for consumption and are not healthy for ANY people or other animals to consume. Wake Up America….or you will find this is not just a European and Chinese tragedy.
LikeLike
NVF ramped up operations for the 2007 transport of American horses after our slaughterhouses were shut down. The cheap horsemeat from Canada is said to be American horses. Cheap? Because it was adulterated?
Right now C-571 is before the House of Parliament in Canada. It reuires every horse presented for slaughter have a lifetime health certificate and thus shuts down the 6 month hold so many criminals justify killing our horses by. Please visit CHDC website for information on how to support from the American side. This bill will be read the second time on May 14 and a vote on May 22. This bill will save hundreds of thousands of horses. Please support.
LikeLike
Jan – what does CHDC stand for? I’d like to support this, but can’t seem to get my computer to figure out what CHDC stands for.
LikeLike
Canadian Horse Defence Coalition (they spell defense with a “c” in Canada)
LikeLike
Scum of the earth! I hope all involved are rounded up, and sent to prison where they belong. We need to know where our horses are going after the BLM hands them over to contract buyers such as Tom Davis and others, and the paperwork disappears.
LikeLike
Disgusted & horrified……just plain GROSS
LikeLike
26 TONS of frozen horse meat! This makes me sick to my stomach. How many beautiful horses must one kill to get 26 tons of meat. It makes me wish bad things to happen to those who knowingly eat horse meat, but even worse things to happen to those who profit from it. Obviously none of those eating horse meat are Christians because nowhere in the bible does God condone the eating of horses.
LikeLike
If you go to the Globe and Mail website and look up the article to read the comments it shows you how ignorant the public is in the UK about the drugs in horse meat. One person was saying how much she likes horse meat. These are the kind of people that deny anything wrong with the meat and keep right on chomping. None of these people seem to know much if anything about horses. There were also comments that stated there was no difference between killing a cow and a horse, I have a good idea that this is just the tip of the iceberg about all of this since horse meat being found in food all over the EU countries. This is not going away, the only way it will stop is if Canada and Mexico stops shipping horse meat to Europe along with the South American countries and the US stops being the major supplier.
LikeLike
C’mon folks.
Shouldn’t the bigger question be the FREAKIN’ time line????
This has been going on far longer than this story “elucidates” (pun on date).
LikeLike
And Mexico is in there BIG time!
LikeLike
The link to this article was posted under Vickery’s article in Forbes.
In reading the entire article, you see one more point of view.
http://manesandtailsorganizationnj.wordpress.com/2014/05/02/a-long-road-to-banning-horse-slaughter/
A Long Road to Banning Horse Slaughter (excerpts)
The news indicates a long road to banning Horse Slaughter in the United States. A Legislative update:
The S.A.F.E. Act is being held hostage in the House. A DISCHARGE PETITION needs to be signed by a certain number of Representatives to get the bill out of the Committee.
The reason we have so much difficulty closing small non USDA Regulated Slaughterhouses is due to the fact that The Horse Councils in each State, The Farm Bureau, and State Departments of Agriculture all lobby heavily to remove the Carnivore Consumption language from any Legislation. This must be dealt with at the Federal Level rather than the State level.
LikeLike