Hundreds of tonnes of fake and substandard food and drink have been seized in an Interpol-Europol coordinated operation across ten European countries, including Bulgaria.

Operation Opson was conducted from November 28 till December 4 and resulted in the recovery of more than 13,000 bottles of substandard olive oil, 30 tonnes of fake tomato sauce, around 77,000 kg of counterfeit cheese, more than 12,000 bottles of substandard wine worth EUR 300,000, five tonnes of substandard fish and seafood, nearly 30,000 counterfeit candy bars.

The sale of fake/substandard caviar via the Internet is also under investigation.

The week-long operation involved police, customs and national food regulatory bodies in addition to partners from the private sector and saw checks carried out in airports, seaports, shops and flea markets across the 10 participating countries.

Consumers buying these goods, either knowingly or unknowingly, are putting their health at risk as the counterfeit food and drink are not subject to any manufacturing quality controls and are transported or stored without proper regard to hygiene standards, Europol said in its official statement.

It also points out that the high profit-low risk activity undermines legitimate business.

"One of the main goals of this operation was to protect the public from potentially dangerous fake and substandard food and drinks, which is a threat that most people are not even aware of," said Simone Di Meo, Criminal Intelligence Officer with Interpol's Intellectual Property Rights programme and coordinator for Operation Opson.

"Criminals will take advantage of any and every opportunity open to them, and this type of operation demonstrates the determination by law enforcement and the private sector to stop this type of criminality," added Di Meo.

"The high number of counterfeit and substandard food seized is worrying and it shows the need for close cooperation among law enforcement agencies to stop criminals active in this type of crime. We will now assist our cooperation partners with further investigations," said Chris Vansteenkiste, project manager in the Intellectual Property Crime Team at Europol.

The countries which took part are Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

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