I military personnel from the Carabinieri Forestry Station of Castel Volturno (CE), together with the staff of the Veterinary Services of the ASL of Caserta, went to the municipality of Grazzanise (CE), to the locality “Via Bonifica”, to a farm, in order to ascertain an alleged illegal activity of illegal detention of livestock since the owner does not have the ASL Company Code which legitimises the detention of income-producing animals.
Once they arrived at the scene, inside a building, they found themselves faced with the presence of three individuals busy processing beef on a counter with cutlery, various equipment for cutting meat and a cold room with additional quarters of slaughtered meat.
The structure was equipped and organized like a real small slaughterhouse with a meat processing room and a cold room. In fact, inside the room there were professional equipment (including a mincer and scales), cutlery and a wooden block, as well as two large tables on one of which were placed anatomical cuts of a bovine head.
Under the work table were plastic boxes containing bones derived from the boning of the meat placed on the two tables.
Inside the same room there was a functioning cold room with a display indicating the temperature, equipped with a guide rail and hooks. Inside the cell there were a front and a rear quarter of beef, without health stamps, a beef loin, for a total weight of about 200 kg, in addition to other offal.
In the space in front of the described premises there is a concrete area with slopes towards a drainage well, equipped with a water point, which is believed to be the place where the slaughter of the animals takes place.
The people found busy with the meat processing turned out to be a local married couple living there while the third person turned out to be a butcher.
The slaughtering activity was found to be completely illegal and no documentation was produced by those present, even regarding the origin of the beef being processed and that found in the cold storage room.
During the reconnaissance of the company, live animals were also found: 13 pigs and 5 cattle, all without any identifying marks, illegally kept inside structures built in brickwork, sheet metal and iron.
It was also found that the excrements of the aforementioned animals flowed directly into a perimeter canal and then dispersed into the surrounding land.
In light of what was ascertained, the military personnel of the Castel Volturno Forestry Carabinieri Station proceeded with the judicial seizure of the following: the local cold storage room; the beef being processed together with that present stored in the cold storage room, for a total of approximately 310 kg; including the 6 knives used for slaughter; as well as the 13 pigs and 5 cattle and the structures in which they were housed.
All three people found were reported at large, in competition with each other, for the crimes of clandestine slaughter outside of premises authorised for this purpose and for the illegal management of waste such as by-products of meat processing and animal excrement.
The ASL Veterinarians, also at the suggestion of the aforementioned military personnel, in order to avoid the possible subsequent dispersion and/or replacement of the aforementioned livestock, proceeded to affix temporary ear tags to the animals found and ordered a health seizure of the livestock, reserving the right to impose the relevant administrative sanctions for the absence of a company code and for the lack of documentation of origin (model IV). Furthermore, they officially blocked the various veterinary drugs that were found there.
It must be specified that, during the aforementioned activity, no situations and/or conditions were encountered that would suggest the existence of possible dangers to the health of consumers of such meats and/or their food preparations.
Article published on 31 October 2022 - 14:11
