Cops seize 40-year-old MEAT about to go on sale at holiday resort

POLICE were shocked when they raided two shops to find meat which was over 40 years old.

   OUT OF DATE: Dimoftache, right, owned the two stores

The experts who raided the stores said they had seized five tonnes of deep-frozen meat about to go on sale to the public in a popular holiday resort city.

Analysis revealed that the meat had been deep-frozen in the early 1980s and stored since then in a deep-freeze before finally going on sale this month in Constanta, south-eastern Romania.

   FRESH: The meat was over 40 years old

The tests also revealed that the meat had apparently been thawed out some six years ago and then refrozen after being sold by the owner of the two stores.

An expert from the Faculty of Food Engineering who carried out the tests on the food, Dr Petru Alexe, said: "This meat is totally unfit for human consumption. "To consume it carries all sorts of risks to anybody who purchases it."

   SICKENING: Dr Petru Alexe said the meat was 'totally unfit for human consumption'

The spokeswoman of the public health service in Constanta, Dr Lolita Popescu, said: "If this meat had been passed on to consumers in the state it is now, it could have been disastrous and possibly even resulted in deaths."

The meat was reportedly being sold at two of the oldest and most respected stores in the city.

When investigators swooped in they were presented with certificates indicating that the meat was safe to eat but these had been forged, it was revealed.

   FRAUD: The certificates with the meat said it was safe but they were fake

After the analysis was carried out, all five tonnes of the meat were destroyed.

The owner of the two stores, Razvan Dimoftache, was being investigated by police over a tax evasion scam and food inspectors were brought in to test the meat over suspicions that it was not fit to be sold.

Dimoftache has been convicted for fraud.