Organized criminals who have long trafficked drugs are diversifying into humdrum areas of commerce—particularly food, booze and cheap consumer goods. For example, some 22 tons of long-grain rice being sold as pricier Basmati were recently seized as part of an operation led by Interpol and Europol, respectively the world’s and Europe’s police agencies. In Worthing, in Sussex, England, trading standards officers spotted nearly 2,500 jars of honey that contained nothing but sugar syrup. Another scam, involving substituting a cheap species of white fish for a pricey one, is hard to spot once the fish has been flaked, breaded and fried. Others dilute expensive olive oil with low-cost soybean oil. Criminals even sell counterfeit washing powder. This brand of crime is growing. In 2007, the Food Standards Agency set up a food-fraud database. That year it received 49 reports of food fraud. In 2013, it received 1,538. The scale and organization required to produce fake food points to criminal groups. And this is no flash in the pan, reckons Huw Watkins of the Intellectual Property Office. Gangs are investing heavily in the machinery, raw materials and labor necessary to make fake food products. A recent meeting of the AntiCounterfeiting Coalition, the world's largest non-profit organization, investigated the issue. Additional policy analysis indicates that this problem would likely continue to expand given which of the following explanations: A) Border police had given priority to food checks over other duties, including examining freight for illicit electronics or conducting passenger checks. B) The lower likelihood of a counterfeiter getting caught, particularly with respect to illegal narcotics, given generic ingredients make detecting fake food far more difficult. C) Crooks who once focused on food have switched to drugs given the punishments associated with food counterfeiting. D) Growing wages and low inflation since the financial crisis have decreased people’s hunger for bargains.
Organized criminals who have long trafficked drugs are diversifying into humdrum areas of commerce—particularly food, booze and cheap consumer goods. For example, some 22 tons of long-grain rice being sold as pricier Basmati were recently seized as part of an operation led by Interpol and Europol, respectively the world’s and Europe’s police agencies.
In Worthing, in Sussex, England, trading standards officers spotted nearly 2,500 jars of honey that contained nothing but sugar syrup. Another scam, involving substituting a cheap species of white fish for a pricey one, is hard to spot once the fish has been flaked, breaded and fried. Others dilute expensive olive oil with low-cost soybean oil. Criminals even sell counterfeit washing powder.
This brand of crime is growing. In 2007, the Food Standards Agency set up a food-fraud database. That year it received 49 reports of food fraud. In 2013, it received 1,538. The scale and organization required to produce fake food points to criminal groups.
And this is no flash in the pan, reckons Huw Watkins of the Intellectual Property Office. Gangs are investing heavily in the machinery, raw materials and labor necessary to make fake food products. A recent meeting of the AntiCounterfeiting Coalition, the world's largest non-profit organization, investigated the issue.
Additional policy analysis indicates that this problem would likely continue to expand given which of the following explanations:
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