Painted olives, tainted sugar top Interpol list of fake food

PARIS (AP) – It reads like the world’s worst menu. Italian olives painted with copper sulphate solution, Sudanese sugar tainted with fertilizer, and hundreds of thousands of liters of bogus alcoholic drinks top Interpol’s annual tally of toxic and counterfeit food seized by police agencies across the world. The haul of bogus diet supplements, adulterated honey and formalin-drenched chicken guts makes for stomach-churning reading. A statement by Interpol said that a record 10,000 tonnes has been recovered across 57 countries. Some busts have been previously reported. European law-enforcement agency Europol, which coordinated the seizures along with Interpol over the past three months, says counterfeit food is “a multi-billion criminal industry which can pose serious potential health risks to unsuspecting customers.”