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The European Commission published its 2019 Annual Report of the Food Fraud Network this month. It gives details of the number of requests for assistance and cooperation to investigate food fraud. The highest number of requests came from Germany (76), followed by the Commission (70), and top three groups of food investigated were fats and oils, fish and fish products, and meat and meat products (not including poultry). The report details EU coordinated actions taken in 2019 on illicit practices concerning animal-by-products, tuna and European eels. The EU Food Fraud Network is also engaged in Operation OPSON – a joint Europol/Interpol initiative targeting trafficking in fake and substandard food and beverages. In 2019, 16 Member States and 18 non-EU countries around the world investigated fraudulent organic food, 2,4 Dinitrophenol (DNP) and coffee (Arabica substituted by Robusta coffee) 

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A Crown Court found that Enhanced Athlete had marketed and sold DNP (2,4-Dinitrophenol), a fat-burning chemical unsafe for human consumption. On 7 February 2019, the company was handed a £100,000 fine, and its former director was sentenced to a suspended prison sentence, community service and corporate restriction. During the trial, prosecutors stated that while DNP can burn fat, the chemical is “toxic to humans, causing serious harmful side effects and, in fact, fatalities”. Enhanced Athlete’s facilities in an industrial area of Wigton had been raided in 2017, and several kilos of DNP powder, tablets and related manufacturing machinery had been confiscated.This raid was a combined operation by FSA's National Food Crime Unit, The Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency, and Allerdale Borough Council.

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