Seville, (EFE).- The Civil Guard has investigated eight people for crimes of fraud, against the market and consumers and industrial property after immobilizing more than 143,000 liters of oil that were sold in Andalusia and Extremadura as virgin olive oil extra, although it was a mixture of seed oil and pomace oil.
The Civil Guard has reported this Friday that the “Giraoliva2sev” operation began last March as a result of the health alert from the Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition (AESAN), which warned of a series of irregularities detected due to the lack of of reliable traceability and sanitary guarantees in some oil brands.
The oil was distributed with a deregistered label and a barcode that did not correspond to it, all under the name of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO), using different registered and responsible addresses, as well as some prices well below the market price.
Seed and pomace oil
The investigators detected two ships in which the oil packaging and labeling could be carried out, and in the records they found two warehouses containing seed oil, mixing and packaging machinery, as well as a computer and a label printer.
In the analyzes of the product, a composition of foreign oils was detected that corresponded to seed oil and pomace oil, not to extra virgin olive oil.
For this reason, 143,433 liters of this oil mixture have been immobilized in Seville, Córdoba and Badajoz, from which an illicit benefit of 851,992 euros would have been obtained.
The Civil Guard has investigated three people as perpetrators of the events and another five as distributors of the brands, all of them in Seville.
The investigation has been carried out by the Nature Protection Unit (UPRONA) of the Seville Civil Guard Command and the Veterinary Inspection Services of the Territorial Delegation of Health and Consumption of the Andalusian Government of Seville. EFE