In a series of raids over the past two weeks Italian officials has seized tons of spoiled seafood. Agriculture Minister Luca Zaia said the seizures over the Christmas holidays, when Italians typically eat lots of fish, were the largest-ever involving seafood. Officials informed that most of the haul involved frozen seafood that was either expired or was poorly conserved. A fraction involved cheap, foreign fish that was being marketed as more expensive, locally-caught fish.
Zaia said at a press conference on board a ship in Venice, that in the operation, dubbed “Transparent Fish,” some 2,000 officials from the Coast Guard and regional ports conducted more than 6,600 searches in 14 ports across Italy from Dec.12-29. The officials said that seven were arrested for scuffling with police during the searches; other importers and distributors were hit with nearly euro700,000 ($985,000) in administrative fines.
The influx of seafood is rampant at this time because many Italians typically eat multi-course, seafood-based meals over Christmas and New Year’s, often involving spaghetti with clams, baked sea bass and other delicacies. Zaia also informed that the raids showed that Italy had zero tolerance for fraud involving its food – especially during the holidays.
