Police break up illegal fish trade

An illegal ring of fish trading has been broken by the Guardia Civil and Carabinieri.

The fish was frozen in Italy, defrosted in Barcelona and then sold back to Italy as fresh fish.

During the fish’s stay in Barcelona Whitech-2 was added, supposedly to give the fish a ‘shine’ which made it look fresh; the consignments of fish also received ‘new’ paperwork which had been falsified in Barcelona.

In a joint operation the Guardia Civil and the Carabinieri have broken a gang that was going to sell over 30 tons of the adulterated fish, mainly squid and cuttlefish.

They also confiscated 1,600 kilos of Whitech-2 which is banned in Europe and which the gang was using to make the fish seem fresher.