By Tony Goodger, head of marketing and communications, AIMS
It is very nearly twenty years since Bulgaria joined the European Union. Unlike many EU member states Bulgaria does have a border with non-member states such as Türkiye, Serbia and North Macedonia.
Novinite, the Bulgarian news agency recently reported that officers from the country’s customs agency working with the Border Control Directorate of the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency had seized an illegal shipment of 1.5 tonnes poultry at the “Kapitan Andreevo” border checkpoint.
The poultry was wrapped in plastic and packed into 80 cardboard boxes and was hidden in a minibus which I can believe we can assume to have not been refrigerated. The meat had none of the required veterinary or transport documents and was taken and destroyed.
What made this seizure of poultry some 1,600 miles from Dover was this. The Kapitan Andreevo border checkpoint has been subject to a learned paper published in May: “The Evolution of Corruption and Crimes at Kapitan Andreevo Border Checkpoint: The Impact of EU Accession”.
The paper identifies four drivers for corruption at the crossing point, one of which is unsurprisingly, economic factors which are driven by market conditions and the inter-play between smugglers, criminal gangs and border officials.
In a relatively poor country such as Bulgaria the point of least resistance have been identified as the customs agents as it is their role as the first point of contact to check the goods transported by commercial and private vehicles before either waving them through or asking for more detailed checks to be performed. Naturally, I believe, this leaves them highly susceptible to the risk of corruption.
In February, Radio Bulgaria reported that there had been numerous reports that inspectors from the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency (BFSA) were demanding a so-called “peace-of-mind fee” with the newly appointed Executive Director of the BFSA, Dr. Angel Mavrovski, urging all affected parties to file complaints.
Dr. Mavrovski clearly set about his work with gusto and between his appointment in February and his removal from the from his post in May he identified several major incidents including illegal slaughterhouses, closed meat processing facilities, and instructed that tons of produce be destroyed due to violations of food safety regulations.
The Bulgarian Agriculture Minister Plamen Abrovski, did at least note at the time of Dr Mavrovski removal that he “has demonstrated that the agency is capable of functioning effectively”. Maybe he should come to work for the FSA!
Returning to the smuggled poultry. According to WOAH, Türkiye doesn’t have any significant outbreaks of disease in the poultry sector, so it is likely that the reason for the crime was purely economic especially as no drugs were found concealed within the chicken.
According to Turkish meat exporter, Sanet, today (27th May) the wholesale price for chicken breast is £3.24kg whilst in the UK, it is as high as £7.95kg. And given that the wholesale price for chicken breast in Bulgaria is £2.51kg (Eurostat) it is probably safe to assume that the 1.5 tonnes of unrefrigerated smuggled chicken meat entering the EU was most likely destined for wealthier markets in the north of the EU or even, the UK. Let’s face it, the border between the EU and UK is somewhat leaky when it comes to smuggled meat despite the fantastic efforts of the local port authorities.
My hunch is this. Cheap Turkish poultry is being smuggled into the EU where it is sold onto businesses who are feeling the economic squeeze and who process the meat into a range of added value products to be sold onto unsuspecting consumers via retail or within foodservice.
It is of note that the government here in the UK are also concerned about the border between Bulgaria and Türkiye to the extent that they have recently deployed sniffer dogs there. One, named Adele, immediately found 48kh of cocaine and unlike the alleged corrupted border officials took her reward in the form of a tennis ball.
The UK’s National Crime Agency reported in May that “Bulgaria is a key partner for the NCA in tackling a range of threats from serious and organised crime”. And that they are currently training three further sniffer dogs to go to the border to work Adele who will help the NCA to expand their work with them and to further increase the UK’s ability to disrupt the criminal networks threatening the security of both of our nations.
Let’s hope that that these dogs are being trained to sniff out illegal meat and that their skills might be passed onto a new generation of UK based sniffer dogs who can keep out illegal poultry and disrupt the economic effect that it has on the UK’s poultry industry.