Get the full story at thegrocer.co.uk 13 January 2018 | The Grocer | 29
Casefile: how Operation Boldo found the culprits
Their undoing was a
single pallet of meat.
It was late 2012
and London meat
manufacturer Dinos
& Sons, led by boss
Andronicos Sideras,
had less than 24 hours
to prepare a batch of
‘Special Beef’ at its
cold storage facility in
Tottenham, mixing Polish
beef with Irish horsemeat
as part of an agreement
with meat broker Ulrik
Nielsen of Flexi-Foods.
In a rush they
mistakenly attached the
wrong batch of fake pallet
notes to the load, sending
it off to Rangeland
Foods in Co Monaghan,
rather than Silvercrest
Foods. The frozen blocks
were rejected for being
outside the scope of its
machinery and Newry-
based Freeza Meats
was asked to store the
rejected load in its
warehouse, though the
company has always
denied knowing its
contents. Then it received
an unexpected visit from
an environmental health
officer on the hunt for
undeclared beef hearts.
“If they hadn’t rushed
that job, if the EHO had
gone in a week or so
later, this would still be
happening now,” says
Detective ConstableStephen Briars,
discussing the case five
years on at the City of
London Police offices.
Briars joined
Operation Boldo, the
team assembled to
investigate the criminals
behind Horsegate, in
August 2013. It was an
unusual case. “We work
here in the Square Mile.
There aren’t any food
producers.” But there
was talk of funds being
made available for a
National Food Crime Unit
following the scandal
(funds that ultimately
went to the FSA) and so
Briars was asked to take
it on.
Sifting through the
material, including 12
tonnes of now rotten,
defrosted meat seized
from the Freeza Meats
facility and 28 crates
of documents in four
languages, the team
quickly established an
arrangement between
Flexi-Foods and Dinos
& Sons, with arrests
as early as July, but
they needed a smoking
gun to prove the men
knew exactly what
they were doing. The
turning point came
in 2014 when Danish
police gave permission
to Briars to search
through Flexi-Foods’offices there, where
they discovered and
seized an offsite server
containing damning
emails that labelled
the contaminated loads
‘Special Athena Beef’ and
talked brazenly about
‘mixing’ meats.
“Once we had that
there wasn’t really
anywhere for them to
go,” says Briars. “When
I interviewed them and
showed them these
emails you could see
their faces thinking ‘oh
my word we’ve been
rumbled here’.” Nielsen
and his assistant Alex
Beech never said a word
in interviews, though,
simply pleading guilty to
fraud in October 2016,
while Sideras insisted
he’d had no part in the
crime at trial in July 2017.
All three were sentenced
in September 2017, with
Nielsen and Sideras sent
to prison for a combined
total of eight years,
while Beech received a
suspended sentence.
“The judge threw the
book at them,” says
Briars. “The sentences
were for punishment,
not rehabilitation. It
hopefully sent out a
message that if you’re
doing this there’s a
chance you’ll be caught
and convicted.”has taken more than 130 samples
from the Silvercrest facility with
around 20% equine DNA in burgers
and raw material.4 February 2013
Production at a second meat
supplier, Rangeland Foods in
County Monaghan, is suspended
after 75% equine DNA is found in
raw ingredients at the supplier,
Ireland’s Department of Agriculture
confirms.6 February 2013
Tesco and Aldi remove frozen
spaghetti and lasagne meals
produced by French food supplier
Comigel after the Food Standards
Agency reports incidents of its beef
lasagne containing up to 100%
horsemeat.15 February 2013
Results from further tests
conducted by supermarkets are
released. Of 1,052 results,of processed meat products. The
same day 10 million beefburgers
are taken off supermarket shelves.17 January 2013
The ABP Food Group suspends
work at the implicated Silvercrest
Foods facility in County Monaghan,
Ireland, until further notice.25 January 2013
The Department of Agriculture in
the Republic of Ireland reveals itEvidence collected by Operation Boldo. 1. (Above)
Twelve tonnes of frozen ‘special beef’. 2. (Left)
Investigators defrosted and searched the load 3.
(Below) A metal detector used to find horse chips