62 | October• 2018
THE FOOD DETECTIVES
surveillance and intelligence gather-
ing as the police,” she says.“he only
diference is that we don’t carry guns.”
Nonetheless, as Gussow points out,
foodfraudisadeadlybusiness.“All
theresearchshowsthatevensmall
residues of growth hormone in beef
can trigger cancers.” And children
are particularly at risk.he small package
weighed just five
kilograms and had
been sent from
China. The im-
port declaration
stuck to the out-
side stated that it contained potas-
sium carbonate, a chemical used in
baking. When Dutch customsoicers
opened it they suspected the white
powder was cocaine. But lab tests re-
vealed something quite diferent, yet
equally sinister: the substance was
17-beta oestradiol, a growth hormone,
banned in the European Union almost
30 years ago, to bulk up cattle.
Thissmallquantityofpowder,
worth €75,000 (A$120,000), was
enough to dose 250,000 calves and
endanger Europe’s food chain.
Scientists describe it as ‘a complete
carcinogen’.Neverbeforehadso
much of this banned substance been
foundintheNetherlands.
Itwastimetocallinspecialistfood
frauddetectivesfromtheinvestiga-
tion division of the Netherlands’ food
andconsumerproductsafetyauthor-
ity–knownastheNVWA-IOD.
In their high-security offices, the
NVWA-IOD’s investigators have a
heavy workload. In one of the com-
puter rooms, banks of screens buzz as
detectives analyse intelligence reports,
covert video and wiretap transcripts.
One of these inspectors is 39-year-
old Karen Gussow. “We have ex-
actly the same powers of arrest,
Aninvestigationunderwayin
the team’s high-security oices