More than 200,000 checks were carried out by Italian authorities in 2016 to fight food crimes and lead the country to the highest level of food safety in the world. This was the finding from the fifth report on agri-food crimes by the Italian farmers’ group Coldiretti, the Institute for Political, Social and Economic Studies (Eurispes) and the Agromofia Observatory.
El Estado debe estar preparado para combatir los crímenes que son cada vez más a escala mundial.
A daily monitoring activity was implemented by several law-enforcement agencies including the Carabinieri (anti-adulteration and anti-fraud units are now supported by the Command Unit for the forestry, environmental and agri-food protection CUTFAA, which was formerly known as State Forestry Corp); the Organized Crime Investigation Service of Financial Police (SCICO); the Central Inspectorate for the protection of quality and fraud prevention of food product (ICQRF), and the Coast Guard.
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“This system safeguards not only the economic fabric but also the health of citizens, the environment and the territory,” said the president of Coldiretti, Roberto Moncalvo. “In Italy, criminal activities in the agri-food sector come to light thank to a state of the art control activity.”
Además, la aplicación de la ley italiana garantiza la protección no solo a los consumidores nacionales sino también a través de los mercados internacionales, especialmente desde que el crimen organizado comenzó a explotar las muchas posibilidades que ofrece Internet.
Increasing attention is being paid by control bodies to the extraordinary development of the online food market over the past 5 years which facilitated the proliferation of frauds such as so-called “Italian-sounding” product marketing — the use of words, images and geographical denominations which evoke Italy to promote products that have nothing to do with the country. These factors helped push the annual turnover from agri-food crimes to €21.8 billion, with a 30-percent increase.
In this regard, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry policies have concluded two important agreements with the leading e‑commerce platforms Alibaba and eBay, and obtained good results after talks with Amazon: On the basis of this understanding, the ICQRF made almost 400 interventions on the three websites, with a 98-percent success rate, removing items from virtual shelves with a total value of €60 million.
Los productos italianos 800 comercializados bajo denominaciones de origen protegidas, incluidos 41 PDO (denominación de origen protegida) y 3 PGI (indicación geográfica protegida), los aceites de oliva virgen extra disfrutan ahora de una mayor protección en la web.
Según el informe, organic olive oil fue el producto más controlado por la Inspección para la prevención del fraude, junto con cereales, frutas y verduras.
Entre las acciones más significativas realizadas durante el último año para salvaguardar la autenticidad del oro líquido, el documento menciona Operation Mamma Mia, lo que llevó a la incautación de aceite de oliva virgen extra etiquetado fraudulentamente como italiano.
Along with the expansion of agri-food frauds at the international level, efforts to tackle them are directed by a more global collaboration: the State Forestry Corps, now merged into the Carabinieri, has promoted in recent years the Opson network (named after ópson, which means “food” in ancient Greek), supported by the Interpol and the European police office (Europol), in collaboration with the Italian Minister of Interior.
Fifty-seven countries have teamed up to collaborate with police forces in international activities, with a methodological approach that assimilates agri-food crimes to intellectual property theft, since they represent not only a food safety issue but also a violation of traditional values and collective interests.
In this sense, according to the national anti-mafia prosecutor, Franco Roberti, a greater coordination of international strategies seems to be the right tool to defeat agropirateria. "La armonización en el contraste de estos crímenes a nivel internacional, como se evidencia en otros sectores, es esencial para implementar acciones efectivas", señaló.
Teniendo en cuenta que las grandes cantidades de productos a menudo se concentran en manos de empresas multinacionales, afirmó que "el Estado debe estar preparado para luchar contra los delitos que son cada vez más a escala mundial".
The report may be requested by contacting the Eurispes and the Observatory on organized crime in agriculture and the agri-food system.