UNDERCOVER investigations in a Polish abattoir have uncovered the illegal slaughter of unfit and diseased cattle, under fraudulent veterinary certification that has allowed the resultant meat to enter the human food chain.

Exposed by investigative programme Superwizjer on Poland's own TVN 24 network, the 'well-organised, well-orchestrated criminal activity' is now the subject of a police investigation, and EU-wide attempts to trace the carcases involved – but the fear is that many hundreds of casualty cows have already reached the human food chain in this manner, and 'intermediaries' along export networks will have blurred their final destination.

Poland's chief veterinary officer said his inspectors and police were tipped off about illegal slaughter at an abattoir near Ostrow Mazowiecka in north-eastern Poland, prompting a raid on the night of January 14-15 when eight sick cows were found on the premises, and subsequently put down because they were in such bad condition.

"During the check, the owners of the animals were identified, along with an animal dealer who transported cattle unfit for transport, and abattoir staff responsible for animal welfare there," the statement said.

However, that may be a case of closing the slaughterhouse door after the potentially dangerous meat has bolted – the extent and apparent longevity of the sick cow trade has the potential to trigger a European-wide safety alert, on a similar scale to the horsemeat scandal of 2013.

According to Patryk Szczepaniak, the reporter who infiltrated the Ostrow Mazowiecka slaughterhouse, during his three night shifts, he counted 28 cows that were too sick to stand going through processing. After leaving the job to film the premises from a distance, his team observed trucks bringing in sick cows for five consecutive weeknights.

“Veterinarians are supposed to be there before, during, and after the slaughter, but in almost three weeks working in the slaughterhouse, I only saw the vet in the morning while he took care of the paperwork and briefly examined the cow’s heads,” said Mr Szczepaniak. “He wasn’t there during the slaughter of the sick cows at the night shift either. On paper everything is fine, but in reality it was a disaster.”

This is not the first Polish slaughterhouse to be accused of processing casualty cows into the food chain – late last year, the owner of a slaughterhouse near Łódź in central Poland was imprisoned for running a similar operation, and it is understood another of the country's abattoirs is under an ongoing investigation.

In fact, investigators have found that there is actually a well-established trade in sick cows in Poland, with traders openly advertising them online, described as 'traumatised' and 'damaged', and selling for five or six times less than a healthy cow, offering abattoir businesses that can sell on the meat at 'healthy' prices a hefty profit boost.

According to the EU statistics agency, Eurostat, Poland is the seventh-largest producer of cow meat in the EU, producing almost two million head of cattle a year for slaughter. In 2017, it produced some 558,500 tonnes of beef and beef products – and in the same year, UK Revenue and Customs data shows that the UK imported about £64.4m worth of Polish beef.

Food safety expert at Queen’s University in Belfast, Professor Chris Elliott, who led the UK government’s independent review of food systems following the horsemeat scandal, commented: “If there is any evidence at all that some of this meat has left Poland then there will be the potential for a European-wide safety alert, with the involvement of many regulatory agencies and potentially police forces from across Europe.”