YUM - Horse meat sold as halal beef by Dutch businessman

"Eat a Horse for Allah."

• Oh that's just terrible! Tons of low-grade Canadian horse meat passed off as halal beef by Dutch businessman.

Tons of low-grade Canadian horse meat were purchased and passed off as halal beef by the Dutch businessman who is now in custody as French authorities investigate the scandal in which horse meat from Romania wound up labeled as ground beef.

Jan Fasen, 64, is the meat trader behind the Cyprus-registered brokerage Draap Trading, the firm at the center of Europe’s Horsegate controversy, where horse meat from Romania was passed off as ground beef in prepared frozen dishes such as lasagna.

Last year, French consumers affairs minister Benoît Hamon confirmed that government inspectors were investigating the links between Draap and the French food processor Spanghero reports The Globe and Mail.

According to Agence France-Presse, Fasen was placed in custody on April 8 and is being formally investigated for fraud.

Fasen’s lawyer, Jérôme Triomphe, told AFP that his client voluntarily turned up for questioning and added that he denied the charges.

According to a 2012 decision by a court in Breda, in the Netherlands, Fasen was involved in a previous case of meat-labelling fraud.

Previous media coverage of that Breda judgment mentioned that the horse meat came from Mexico and Brazil, but didn’t detail that part of the bogus beef came from Canada.

The ruling does not identify the defendant but a Dutch official confirmed to The Globe and Mail that it was one of Fasen’s companies, Fasen Meat Trading.

Fasen Meat Trading purchased 26 tons of frozen Canadian horse meat, the ruling said.  Fasen Meat Trading delivered to a French food company in Normandy 22 tons of what it labelled as halal beef.

In fact, about half of that shipment was frozen Canadian horse meat, according to the ruling.

(Blazing Cat Fur News Service)

"Also try our Halal bacon."