A man has been arrested after police seized 38kg (5st 9lb) of illegal frozen bushmeat including pangolins, cane rats and porcupines, the food safety watchdog said.<\/p>\n
Officers from the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and the Metropolitan Police found the bushmeat at a site in Deptford, south-east London, on 5 December.<\/p>\n
Bushmeat is from wild animals – often species found in tropical regions – that have been hunted.<\/p>\n
A 57-year-old man was arrested and released under investigation, the FSA said. The watchdog said the operation targeted illegally imported meat products which posed potential food safety risks to consumers.<\/p>\n
Illegally imported meat bypasses the safety and hygiene checks required for food sold in the UK and could carry diseases and contaminants that put consumers at risk, the FSA added.<\/p>\n
Some species, such as pangolins, are also critically endangered and all commercial trade of them is prohibited internationally.<\/p>\n
Simon Ashwin, senior investigator at the FSA’s National Food Crime Unit, said the operation was part of ongoing work “to disrupt the illegal meat trade”.<\/p>\n
“The FSA advises consumers not to buy or eat illegally imported meat, including bushmeat, as it may pose serious health risks,” he said.<\/p>\n
“If you have concerns about products being sold, contact your local authority.”<\/p>\n
The FSA said inquiries were ongoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man has been arrested after police seized 38kg (5st 9lb) of illegal frozen bushmeat including pangolins, cane…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-179355","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}