Horse-meat scandal is now mafia-linked horse-and-donkey-meat scandal

[dixiegrrrrl]

Initially, regulators were talking about a few shipments of beef that had maybe 30 percent horse meat in them. The horse meat had shown up in a limited number of grocery store chains. But now, the horse meat is being found many more places – in Irish Burger King franchises and in France, for instance –and in greater concentrations. (We’re talking 100 percent prime horse burger.) And some of the horse meat might actually be donkey meat. And international organized crime groups might be to blame.

The Independent reports that it’s clearer now where the horse meat came from:

It came from abattoirs in Romania through a dealer in Cyprus working through another dealer in Holland to a meat plant in the south of France which sold it to a French-owned factory in Luxembourg which made it into frozen meals sold in supermarkets in 16 countries.

The most important bit of this rambling path is where the meat started — in Romania. The Independent says that the country’s suffering from an excess of horse meat. A law recently banned horse-drawn carts from the road, which meant Romania had a lot of horses it need to dispose of. And donkey-drawn carts were also banned, “leading to speculation among food-industry officials in France that some of the ‘horse meat’ which has turned up on supermarket shelves in Britain, France and Sweden may, in fact, turn out to be donkey meat,” the Independent writes.

But why would slaughterhouses agree to substitute horse for beef? That’s where the mafia comes in.

http://grist.org/list/horse-meat-scandal-is-now-mafia-linked-horse-and-donkey-meat-scandal/

[Octafish]

1. When I order a Dobbin Burger, I expect to get a Dobbin Burger.

Thank you for the back story, dixiegrrrrl. The Mafia sure knows how to make a killing.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. It seems that EVERYTHING is crooked nowdays.

which is what happens when enforcement at the top is missing.

[Octafish]

3. Moyers says our politicians are money launderers, not too different from Tony Soprano

You probably wrote this for him:

http://www.alternet.org/story/152949/bill_moyers%3A_our_politicians_are_money_launderers_not_too_different_from_tony_soprano

Money is a Buy-Partisan Phenomenon.