A businessman has appeared in court accused of fraud over his alleged involvement in passing off horsemeat as beef in a plot “motivated by greed”.
Andronicos Sideras went on trial on Thursday accused of conspiring to mix meats together and pass them off as beef.
A jury heard that consumers and other firms were left unsure of what they were eating and short-changed as a result of the alleged scheme in 2012.
“This case, stripped to its essentials, is actually very straightforward. It is about lying to people and deceiving people to make money. Or, to be more precise, to make more money,” the prosecutor, Jonathan Polnay, told the jury. “Like most, if not all, offences of dishonesty, it was motivated by greed.”
He described a process by which ownership of a large shipment of poorer quality cuts of horsemeat, known as “trim”, passed legally through various companies in Europe before coming under the responsibility of a north London firm, Dinos & Sons.
The company’s head, the prosecutor said, was Sideras. “Whilst at Dinos, the horsemeat and the beef would be mixed together into a single load. Where necessary, Dinos would create false paperwork and labels to make it look like all the meat being supplied was beef.”
Opening the prosecution’s case at Inner London crown court on Thursday, Polnay told the jury: “The consequence of this fraud was that consumers and food processors alike were not only out of pocket financially, because they were being done over, but they were being deceived about what they were eating.”
He said that the fraud was a simple process. “In 2012, beef sold for around €3 [£2.60] a kilogram at wholesale prices. Horsemeat was cheaper. At the time, it sold for around €2 [£1.75] a kilogram.
“The people concerned in this case would sell meat and they would pretend it was all beef. It was not. In fact, it was a mixture of beef and horsemeat. The fraudsters made money by selling a mixture of expensive beef and cheap horsemeat as 100% expensive beef.”
Two men from another firm, Ulrik Nielsen and Alex Beech, have admitted involvement in the alleged conspiracy. The prosecutor told the jury that meant they did not have to decide whether or not it had happened, but whether or not Sideras was guilty of involvement in it.
Sideras, 55, did not speak during the hearing, overseen by Judge Owen Davies QC, but indicated who he was to the jury at the prosecutor’s request. He pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to defraud at an earlier hearing. The trial continues.
