Feds seize millions of pound smuggled Chinese pork
US .. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) stopped an attempt to smuggle a million pounds of pork from China to a New Jersey port on Friday, which resulted in the largest attack of the agricultural product in American history. This comes on the heels of African swine fever (ASF) which rages through China and destroys the swine population in the world's largest pork producing country.
"This was very orchestrated," said Stephen Maloney, Customs and Border Patrol Acting Port Director of the New York / Newark Harbor. He said this was a joint effort to hide product.
More than 100 CBP agricultural specialists and K-9 teams worked to uncover prohibited food. The pork was smuggled in various ways from the frame noodle to Tide detergent containers, said deputy chief agricultural specialist Basil Liakakos.
In some cases, the packaging in the shipment matched the products on the manifesto, the authorities said, but the contents inside were prohibited pork. In other cases, the pork was easily packed among the other products.
CBP teams work hard to keep ASF, a highly transmissible, lethal virus of pigs, out of the United States ASF does not affect humans but spread rapidly to pigs and wild boar. The ASF virus survives 1[ads1]50-180 days in fresh meat. In frozen meat reports report that the virus can live indefinitely.
Officials announced this attack on more than 50 freight containers during a press conference on Friday morning at a store in Elizabeth, NJ According to a NJ.com article, three rooms were filled wall-to-wall with packages of illegally smuggled pork products.
"Agricultural specialists made a critical cut of these banned animal products and stopped them from entering the US before they could potentially cause serious damage," said Troy Miller, director of Customs and Border Protection Field Operations in New York / Newark. . 19659002] When all 50 freight containers have been examined, the confiscated products are incinerated, Miller said. At this point, there is an ongoing investigation, said Anthony Bucci, a Bloomberg CBP specialist.
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