The Civil Guard has arrested eleven people who formed an organization, with two branches in Spain and Italy, dedicated to the international distribution of adulterated olive oil.
The operation has been carried out in coordination with Carabinieri and Europol and eight searches have been carried out between both countries, specifically, in cooperatives in the provinces of Ciudad Real, Jaén and Córdoba, the Civil Guard reported this Monday in a statement.
The Seprona of the Civil Guard carried out an inspection of a truck transporting olive oil in Manzanares (Ciudad Real) where it detected a series of anomalies.
As a result of this case, the Organic Unit of the Judicial Police began the Omegabad operation, which allowed the agents to verify the existence of an organization with two branches, one Spanish and the other Italian, dedicated to distributing adulterated olive oil internationally.
In Spain they used a company linked to the process of acquiring lower category oils to make changes in the category of cloudy oils to lampante to convert them into virgin and extra virgin by falsifying the documentation in order to market them.
They mixed the cloudy oils, a by-product of olive oil, with the best quality olive oil to achieve adequate fat and erythrodiol parameters that would allow their trade.
They also prevented product traceability by not registering their company’s olive oils.
In Italy, two companies brought together oils from a large part of the countries that are relevant in the olive oil scene, the majority entering the European Union through Portugal and carrying out the same falsification and manipulation procedures with them as in Spain.
In addition, they used a strong transnational business structure through companies in the main oil-producing countries without traceability controls such as the Spanish one, which facilitated the work of adulteration.
Eight searches have been carried out in Spain and Italy simultaneously, five of them in bottling plants and oil warehouses in Ciudad Real, Jaén and Córdoba, and eleven people have been arrested.
The records have seized 16 oil tanks and more than 5,200 liters of adulterated olive oil ready for sale to the public.
More than 91,000 euros in cash, four high-end vehicles have been seized and several bank accounts have been blocked.
