By Tito Drago
MADRID, Jun 1 2000 (IPS)

A million-dollar fraud involving food destined for assistance projects in developing countries was uncovered in Spain by police as a result of Red Cross monitoring of humanitarian assistance operations.

Spain’s Civil Guard (militarised police) arrested three people Thursday in the northwestern coastal city of La Coruña who are accused of heading a network that illegally distributed damaged canned goods.

In the same operation, 400 tonnes of spoiled canned sardines were found ready for distribution outside the country.

The story began when the Red Cross received a subsidy two years ago from the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO), of the European Union, to distribute 565 tonnes of canned goods to the Saharaui people living as refugees in Tinduf, Algeria.

This institution, which is part of the International Red Cross, always hires a third company to perform quality control of the products it distributes, and requires suppliers to provide a guarantee of 110 percent of the value of the merchandise, said Joaquín Morte, head of Red Cross food assistance operations here.

In this case, the food was purchased from the Inviva company in the Spanish region of Galicia, which had obtained it in Portugal and had contracted for canning to take place at two canneries in La Coruña.

When the first shipment was ready to be sent to Tinduf, the monitoring company hired by the Red Cross detected problems, such as punctured and swollen cans, which make the food they contained unacceptable for human consumption. After several evaluations, Inviva was ordered to destroy the entire lot.

Because Inviva was not the legal owner of the merchandise, explained the Red Cross, the immediate destruction of the food was not possible, which led the humanitarian organisation to initiate legal action.

Inviva, meanwhile, instead of destroying the damaged goods, began making inquiries to sell the shipment through several retailers from Madrid, Valencia, Catalonia and Galicia, reported the police.

A shipment of 50,000 cans had already been sent to Estonia but the Civil Guard notified authorities there, preventing anyone from eating the contaminated food.

When they were originally prepared for shipment to Tinduf, the containers bore labels that included the Red Cross and ECHO logos.

The individuals arrested had apparently covered up the logos, used a certificate that was meant for a shipment of frozen fish fillets and produced false receipts to try to convince potential buyers that a portion of the sardine shipment had already been purchased by other companies.

Red Cross official Morte told IPS that this case is an anomaly and demonstrates that the organisation takes the necessary precautions to ensure the quality of its food aid.

He emphasised that the Red Cross had rejected the first shipment of 105,000 kilos and annulled the contract in its entirety, adding that the organisation currently has 42 million kilos in food assistance in progress, all protected by the necessary quality controls.

“This is a regrettable incident in which unscrupulous people were able to get around a serious of legal and regulatory obstacles but, in the end, they were discovered before their actions could harm anyone,” concluded the official.

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