The secret recipe for a herbal pesticide allegedly contained massive amounts of the banned substance Fipronil. The two managers who sold the treatment will be held pending further investigations into the scandal.
Image: Imago/Belga/K. Van Accom
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Two alleged ringleaders behind a tainted-eggs scandal that has engulfed Europe faced court in the Netherlands on Tuesday.
The men were identified by Dutch media as 31-year-old Martin van de B. and 24-year-old Mathijs I.J. They appeared at a closed hearing at the Overijssel District Court in the central Dutch city of Zwolle.
"The public prosecution service suspects the two managers of a disinfection company of using Fipronil at poultry farms in the Netherlands," the court said in a statement.
"Thereby they endangered public health, and there are suspicions they knew that the biocide was banned."
The suspects were arrested on Thursday during police raids in the Netherlands and Belgium on eight premises, including the pair's company, Chickfriend.
They will be held pending further investigations, the court ruled.
Scandal spreads to 17 European countries
The fipronil scandal has affected 17 European countries to date and spread as far afield as Hong Kong and South Korea.
Fipronil is a broad-spectrum insecticide commonly used to rid livestock of fleas, lice and ticks. It is banned by the European Union from use in the food industry as it can damage the human kidney, liver and thyroid gland.
The managers of the poultry farm cleaning business reportedly promised farmers that their secret recipe could quickly rid hens of their farms of poultry mite for eight months. But their secret herbal compound, Dega 16, allegedly contained large amounts of the banned Fipronil.
They allegedly sourced their fipronil from Belgian business Poultry Vision, which in turn had sourced it from a chemical manufacturer in Romania.
Food scandals in Germany
Millions of Dutch eggs contaminated with insecticide have made it into the German market. From eggs to horsemeat, strawberries to sprouts, DW takes a look at recent food scandals that have affected the country.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Toxic eggs
Millions of eggs had to be recalled in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany after they were found to contain the insecticide fipronil. The highly toxic substance can cause damage to the liver, thyroid glands and kidneys if ingested in large amounts. More than 150 poultry farms in the Netherlands had to be shut down and a number of German supermarkets pulled eggs from their shelves.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Huisman Media
Beef with Brazil
A number of countries banned meat imports from Brazil in March 2017 after a police investigation found meat packers had been selling rotten produce. In some cases, carcinogenic chemicals had been used to mask the smell of bad meat. Germany imported around 114,000 tons of meat and meat products from Brazil in 2016. But German authorities said no tainted meat had been sold in the country.
Image: Picture alliance/NurPhoto/C. Faga
Mice in Bavarian bakeries
Earlier this year, German consumer protection group Foodwatch reported that mold and mice had been uncovered in several large-scale Bavarian bakeries. The watchdog cited the results of 69 inspections between 2013 and 2016. Rodent hair and chew marks were found on one bakery's goods. Another establishment had cockroaches crawling through flour and a mound of rodent feces baked into a wheat roll.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/P. Knecht
Horsemeat lasagna anyone?
In 2013, millions of people across Europe discovered that a number of meat products passed off as being pork or beef were in fact horsemeat. It all started when Irish food safety inspectors detected horsemeat in frozen beef burgers. Further investigation found that ready-to-eat meals in a number of EU countries, including Germany, also contained horsemeat.
Image: Reuters
Strawberry surprise
In 2012, more than 11,000 German schoolchildren were taken ill with vomiting and diarrhea because they ate from the same batch of deep-frozen strawberries. The mass food poisoning spanned almost 500 schools and day care centers in the east of the country. Fortunately, many of the victims had a speedy recovery. Only 32 were taken to hospital.
Image: Mehr
Dioxin health scare
In early 2011, thousands of German farms, most of them in the state of Lower Saxony, were temporarily shut after they received animal feed laced with dioxine. German officials said the tainted feed had been fed to hens and pigs, contaminating eggs, poultry meat and some pork. Contaminated exports were shipped as far as Britain, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Poland.
Image: picture alliance / ZB
E. coli outbreak
Also in 2011, a strain of Escherichia coli O104:H4, a bacteria found in vegetables, caused a deadly outbreak of illness in northern Germany. More than 4,000 people were infected - showing symptoms like bloody diarrhea and hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can lead to kidney failure. More than 50 people died. A sprout farm in Lower Saxony is believed to be the source of the outbreak.
In the ensuing scandal, Belgian claimed that Dutch authorities were tipped off about the substance in November 2016 but had not alerted European authorities. Belgian authorities knew about the scandal in June but also did not say anything until late July.
Authorities only publicly announced on August 1 that they had detected the banned substance in eggs that had been distributed across Europe, leading to millions of eggs being pulled from supermarket shelves and destroyed and dozens of poultry farms being closed.
The scandal was estimated to have cost poultry farms at least 150 million euros ($175 million), a spokesman for the ZLTO federation of southern Dutch farmers and gardeners said Monday.
The EU insisted that there was no threat to humans.
