Police Have Uncovered a Massive Illegal Meat-Smuggling Ring in Israel and Palestine

On Monday, Israeli officials seized thousands of dollars in cash, uncovered trucks rigged with hidden compartments, and arrested nine people.

While this scene has all the makings of a drug or arms deal, the contraband in this case was actually far less nefarious. The illegal cargo turned out to be 30 tons of meat—with forged kosher certifications and expiration dates—headed for some of Tel Aviv's swankiest restaurants. And it was no small operation.

"According to findings in our possession, the restaurants and stores received entrecote steak at 60 shekels ($16) a kilo instead of 120 shekels, and sirloin at 40 shekels a kilo instead of 100 shekels. When you buy meat at a 50 percent discount on the market price, it needs to set off alarm bells," Roi Klinger, head of the animal and plant oversight unit at the Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry, told Haaretz.

What's more, it would seem that this recent bust appears to be part of a larger investigation that has exposed a smuggling ring that has been bringing meat from South America into Palestine and then back into Israel.

Given the less-than-desirable state of refrigeration in smuggling trucks, much of the meat is not fit for human consumption. But the basic economic reality that non-kosher meat is far less expensive than the certified stuff, combined with the fact that meat shipped to Palestine is far cheaper than meat shipped to Israel makes these kinds of operations inevitable.

Israel's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development claims that since the beginning of 2016, more than 39,000 kilos of meat have been seized by their investigators, and that a total of 363 smuggling attempts totaling 729 tons of meat have been foiled over the last three years.