The Guardia Civil in Murcia carried out three arrests as part of their police operation, Mixta Oleum, against adulterated cooking oil.

The suspects are accused of producing vegetal oil that is not apt for human consumption. In the raid on the oil mill they confiscated 12,800 kilos of olive oil, 856 kilos of honey and 200 kilos of pickled olives – all of which was detrimental for people’s health.

Police investigations began in June last year after their environmental department (Seprona) received a report from the Inspección Regional de Consumo y Fraude Alimentario, belonging to the regional government of Murcia.

When the olive oil was examined by the IRCFA it showed that it also contained sunflower and palm oil, amongst others. Consequently, the Guardia Civil inspected the premises where they also discovered lampante olive oil, not suitable for human consumption since it is an olive oil considered defective, either because of its production process, or because the olives may have been picked from the ground, whose name, in no case, must correspond to the virgin olive oil

Some of these products had already been distributed to Barcelona, Girona, Castellón and the Balearic Islands as well as to France and Belgium.

In fact, even after the Guardia Civil immobilised the products inside the oil factory, the company still traded some of it, claiming when questioned, that it had been stolen from the premises. This is why the three individuals were arrested.

A total of 4,130 kilos of olive oil were taken and destroyed by the police and the arrested individuals charged with fraud, disregard for authority, falsely reporting a crime, failing to comply with police instructions and offences against public health.

Editorial comment: readers might remember the scandal of using adulterated rapeseed (containing aniline) for industrial use, mixed in with olive oil (corza) which lead to deaths and chronic illnesses in those that consumed it.

(News: Murcia, Spain)