July 29, 2004

South Korea Receives U.S. Beef In Mexican Shipment
 

The National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service in South Korea announced yesterday that the government is investigating clandestine imports of American beef, a product banned from entering the country last year after a case of mad cow disease was discovered in the United States.

According to the veterinary service, the U.S. beef appears to have entered the country as part of a shipment of Mexican meat. The distribution of beef imported from Mexico has been halted and the agency is inspecting the 212 tons of meat in storage.

Authorities said 287 kilograms (632 lbs) of American beef was found mixed with 38 tons of Mexican exports. The Korean government banned U.S. beef last December, after a single cow in Washington state tested positive for mad cow disease.

Korea had previously been the third-largest importer of American beef in the world, according to the U.S. Meat Export Federation.

"We suspect that a domestic importing company collaborated with the Mexican slaughterhouse in smuggling in the American beef," said an official at the veterinary authority.

The official said that as Mexico also stopped importing American beef between December and March, and since this is the first time that such a case has been discovered, it is highly unlikely that any U.S. beef has been distributed in the domestic market.

Experts, however, say that since a large amount of Mexican beef imported since March has been distributed locally, it is too early to overlook the possibility that American beef is circulating in Korean markets.

Although the Korean government and the Mexican government signed agreements on sanitary measures for beef imports in 1998, Mexican beef has only been imported into Korea from this year.