Three men have been charged with fraud relating to horsemeat and beef sales following a thorough investigation, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in the UK has said.
Ulrick Nielsen, from Denmark, Alex Ostler-Beech and Andronicos Sideras, both from Britain, have been charged with the offences.
The three of them will appear at the City of London Magistrates Court on Tuesday September 27, 2016, according to the CPS.
Kristin Jones, Head of Specialist Fraud for the CPS said that after carefully considering evidence from the UK and overseas, the CPS has decided that there is sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.
“It is in the public interest to charge these three men. This decision comes after a thorough investigation conducted by the City of London Police in liaison with partner agencies.”
The three men are accused of conspiring together, and with others, between January 1 and October 31, 2012, that contained wholly, to defraud purchasers of goods that contained, wholly or in part, a mixture of beef and horsemeat, by dishonestly arranging for beef and horsemeat to be combined for sale as beef.
In 2015, it emerged that horsemeat DNA was found in products that were labelled as beef in several EU countries which then led to an international criminal investigation.
