Joshua Parfitt
GUARDIA Civil have arrested an expat for his responsibility in the biggest food scam in Europe – a.k.a. Horsegate, the horse meat scandal .
Jan Fasen, 68, was arrested in Calpe after the claim of France, where he was sentenced to two years in prison by the high court of Paris last February.
He stands accused of having sold with his cronies more than 538 tons of meat sold as beef but containing horse.
The food fraud was discovered in the UK in 2013, when it was found that frozen burgers supplied to several supermarkets, including Tesco, contained horse DNA.
The meat was palmed off as beef and entered pre-cooked dishes such as lasagna, musakas or chili.
The scam resulted in a recall of 50,000 tonnes of meat products across Europe, making it one of Europe’s largest food scandals.
Fasen, has moved through Europe in recent years, leaving behind a trail of fraud and scandals always related to horse meat.
In 2009 he was convicted in his country for passing horse meat as halal beef (which is in counter to the precepts of Islam).
In 2017, he was at the epicentre of a macroperation in Spain also for a similar fraud selling meat from recreational horses that do not meet strict veterinary requirements.
After his arrest on July 23 in Calpe, Fasen was placed at the disposal of the Central Court of Instruction 3 of the National Court, which will have to decide whether to extradite Fasen to France.
Fasen and the rest of his network are accused of animal abuse, document falsification, money laundering, criminal organisation and crimes against public health.
More than 60 people have been arrested in a crack down on the scandal.
