The National Police, the Inter-Institutional Unit for the Prevention, Combat, and Suppression of Smuggling, and the Public Ministry conducted an intelligence operation that revealed the horse meat seized in some butcher shops in Luque was sold in lomiteras, eateries, and barbecue stands. The Central Department is the region that supplies the majority of the product where horse meat is mislabeled as cow meat in Republic of Paraguay.

Commissioner Nelson Vera, head of the Department of Economic and Financial Crimes Against Smuggling, stated that they conducted investigations in this regard for more than a month based on complaints of unfair competition.

Five butcher shops in that area were raided for what they claimed to be beef. The police chief reported that 6,000 kilograms of meat had been seized and was being sold for less than the price of beef. According to the head of the Department of Economic and Financial Crimes Against Contraband, 30,000 to 35,000 kilos of contraband are sold each day.

All of the seized meat products will now be brought to the National Animal Health and Quality Service’s facilities, where it must be determined through scientific research what kinds of meat were seized.

The investigation reveals that these are meats that were delivered in refrigerated vehicles at a specific time between midnight and dawn, and when dawn arrived, the meat was picked up in bags by high-end vehicles and distributed to other locations.

According to Commissioner Nelson Vera, no butcher shop presented documentation about their products during today’s interventions. In the past, Luque filed complaints against covert slaughterhouses that were used to kill horses and even donkeys. In 2016, LaTele and ltima Hora made a case about the J & M abattoir, which was housed in the Ycuá Caranday company but lacked Senacsa authorization.

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