THE city’s market supervision authorities seized 296 kilograms of purported mutton that they suspect is dog meat in two markets in Gongming and Shajing on Tuesday, Shenzhen Special Zone Daily reported.

    The stalls selling fake mutton reportedly defrauded buyers by cutting off the dog’s head and feet and placing the meat together with sheep organs, claiming that they were selling mutton.

    A stall owner at a market in Gongming, Guangming New Area, priced mutton at 45 yuan (US$7.37) per 500 grams and dog meat at 25 yuan per 500 grams. When a law enforcement officer visited the stall, the owner, a man surnamed Lu, insisted that he was selling authentic mutton and tried to cheat the officer by showing him a quarantine stamp printed on a lamb leg.

    The meat Lu sold had neither heads nor feet, making it difficult for ordinary consumers to tell the difference. But after a law enforcement officer pointed out a distinguishing difference between dogs and sheep, Lu admitted he was actually selling dog meat. The dog meat Lu sold had no quarantine stamps and Lu couldn’t provide any animal quarantine and inspection certificates.

    Lu said he purchased about 50 kilograms of the meat a day from a vendor in Dongguan.

    The owner of another meat stall in the market was doing the same. That owner claimed that the meat was from a local slaughterhouse and showed an animal quarantine and inspection certificate, but the meat he alleged was mutton had no quarantine stamp on it.

    Officers also seized dog meat disguised as mutton at two stalls in the Mingzhu market in Shajing, Bao’an District, on Tuesday.

    Law enforcement officers said the meat stall owners would mix mutton with dog meat to cheat consumers and, as they did to police, would often show the quarantine and inspection stamp on a piece of actual mutton to quell suspicions.

    Liu Haihua, an officer at Shenzhen Municipal Food and Drug Administration, said that slaughtered dogs cannot be granted with quarantine and inspection certificates according to the city’s existing rules.

    The administration said it would investigate the sources of the seized meat and conduct thorough genetic and toxicology tests.

    In 2014, the city reported 8,069 food safety violations, a 69.5 percent rise from 2013, and 213 violations were prosecuted, nearly double the amount in 2013.

    (Anna Zhao)