Italian Police Official Explains How Olive Oil Fraud Works
意大利警方官员解释了橄榄油欺诈的运作方式

Fraud and coun­ter­feit­ing oper­a­tions con­tinue to pose sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges for the olive oil indus­try.
欺诈和假冒操作继续对橄榄油行业构成重大挑战。

In Italy, one of the world’s largest olive oil pro­duc­ers, spe­cial­ized police units actively com­bat­ing the illicit food trade, explic­itly focus­ing on olive oil adul­ter­ation.
在意大利，世界上最大的橄榄油生产国之一，专门的警察单位积极打击非法食品贸易，明确关注橄榄油掺假。

Genuine, high-qual­ity olive oil is a prime tar­get for crim­i­nal orga­ni­za­tions. Counterfeit olive oil, falsely labeled as a PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) or PGI (Protected Geographical Indication), under­mines legit­i­mate pro­duc­ers and poses seri­ous risks to con­sumer health.
正宗、优质的橄榄油是犯罪组织的主要目标。假冒橄榄油，被错误地贴上 PDO（受保护的原产地名称）或 PGI（受保护的地理标志）标签，破坏了合法生产商，并对消费者健康构成严重风险。

For crim­i­nals, coun­ter­feit high-qual­ity food can yield sub­stan­tial prof­its. This trend is preva­lent across many sta­ples of Italian cui­sine, with olive oil being a par­tic­u­larly lucra­tive tar­get.
对于犯罪分子来说，假冒优质食品可以产生可观的利润。这种趋势在意大利菜的许多主食中都很普遍，橄榄油是一个特别有利可图的目标。

The Central Inspectorate for the Protection of Quality and Fraud Repression of Agri-food Products (ICQRF), an agency under the Ministry of Agricultural and Forestry Policies, reported that in 2023 alone, 380 tons of ille­gal olive oil prod­ucts, with a value exceed­ing €2 mil­lion, were seized.
农业和林业政策部下属机构农业食品质量保证和欺诈打击中央检查局 （ICQRF） 报告称，仅在 2023 年，就查获了 380 吨非法橄榄油产品，价值超过 200 万欧元。

“Extra vir­gin olive oil, along with PDOs and PGIs, are pre­mium prod­ucts that con­tinue to grow in vol­ume and mar­ket share,” Lieutenant Colonel Michele Avagnale, com­man­der of the Carabinieri Health Protection Group (NAS) in Naples, a spe­cial­ized unit within the Italian police forces, told Olive Oil Times.
“特级初榨橄榄油以及 PDO 和 PGI 是优质产品，在数量和市场份额方面不断增长，”意大利警察部队的一个专门单位那不勒斯宪兵健康保护小组 （NAS） 指挥官米歇尔·阿瓦尼亚莱 （Michele Avagnale） 中校告诉 Olive Oil Times.

“Italy’s olive oil indus­try involves numer­ous key play­ers, from pro­duc­ers and olive mills to both pri­mary and sec­ondary pro­cess­ing indus­tries, as well as com­pa­nies that pur­chase Italian and for­eign olive oil to cre­ate blends or bot­tle and sell it to the final dis­tri­b­u­tion com­pa­nies,” Avagnale explained.
“意大利的橄榄油行业涉及众多主要参与者，从生产商和橄榄厂到初级和次级加工业，以及购买意大利和外国橄榄油以制造混合物或装瓶并将其出售给最终分销公司的公司，“Avagnale 解释说。

“Similar types and grades of olive oil can be legally blended,” he added. ​“European Union leg­is­la­tion stip­u­lates that a legit­i­mate extra vir­gin olive oil blend con­sists solely of extra vir­gin olive oils that belong to the same com­mer­cial cat­e­gory and fully com­ply with extra vir­gin olive oil reg­u­la­tions.”
“类似类型和等级的橄榄油可以合法混合，“他补充道。“欧盟立法规定，合法的特级初榨橄榄油混合物仅由属于同一商业类别并完全符合特级初榨橄榄油法规的特级初榨橄榄油组成。”

This is where ille­gal blend­ing comes into play, under­min­ing the mar­ket and pos­ing poten­tial threats to con­sumer health.
这就是非法混合发挥作用的地方，破坏了市场并对消费者健康构成潜在威胁。

“When we talk about food fraud, I would speak about tan­gi­ble dam­ages rather than risk fac­tors,” Avagnale said. ​“Food fraud is a seri­ous threat to pub­lic health. Criminals seek to deceive con­sumers by sell­ing prod­ucts that do not match what is stated on the label.”
“当我们谈论食品欺诈时，我会谈论有形损害而不是风险因素，“Avagnale 说。“食品欺诈是对公共卫生的严重威胁。犯罪分子试图通过销售与标签上声明不符的产品来欺骗消费者。

Avagnale warned that food fraud inflicts dam­age in mul­ti­ple ways, result­ing in eco­nomic losses for con­sumers, busi­nesses and the state.
Avagnale 警告说，食品欺诈以多种方式造成损害，给消费者、企业和国家造成经济损失。

“Public health may also be dam­aged since food con­tain­ing harm­ful sub­stances or those which alter the nutri­tional bal­ance may be mar­keted,” he said. ​“Illegal blend­ing involves mix­ing vir­gin or extra vir­gin olive oils with lower-qual­ity oils, known as ​‘lam­pante.’ These oils are then treated to remove any organolep­tic or chem­i­cal defects.”
“由于可能销售含有有害物质或改变营养平衡的食品，因此公共卫生也可能受到损害，“他说。“非法混合涉及将初榨或特级初榨橄榄油与低质量的橄榄油混合，称为 'lampante'。然后对这些油进行处理以去除任何感官或化学缺陷。

Advanced blend­ing tech­nolo­gies are also exploited to per­pe­trate olive oil fraud.
先进的混合技术也被用来实施橄榄油欺诈。

“Illegal blend­ing can also involve link­ing con­tain­ers of sub­stan­dard prod­ucts to those con­tain­ing qual­ity oil, blend­ing them through spe­cial­ized soft­ware,” Avagnale said. ​“Using this soft­ware, crim­i­nals can pro­duce a prod­uct whose organolep­tic and chem­i­cal para­me­ters meet the E.U. reg­u­la­tions for extra vir­gin olive oils.”
“非法混合还可能涉及将不合格产品的容器与含有优质油的容器联系起来，通过专门的软件进行混合，“Avagnale 说。“使用此软件，犯罪分子可以生产出其感官和化学参数符合欧盟特级初榨橄榄油法规的产品。”

The acces­si­bil­ity of the tech­nol­ogy has enabled crim­i­nal orga­ni­za­tions to refine their oper­a­tions, exploit­ing the pop­u­lar­ity of olive oil for profit. Consequently, NAS has also had to enhance its tech­nol­ogy and meth­ods.
该技术的可访问性使犯罪组织能够改进他们的运营，利用橄榄油的流行来牟利。因此，NAS 也必须增强其技术和方法。

“Agri-food crime has evolved over the years,” Avagnale said. ​“It no longer involves crude, eas­ily detectable coun­ter­feits through ran­dom sam­pling, such as the par­tial or com­plete blend­ing of extra vir­gin olive oil with soy­bean, sun­flower or palm oils mixed with chloro­phyll or beta-carotene.”
“多年来，农业食品犯罪一直在发展，“Avagnale 说。“它不再涉及通过随机抽样进行粗糙、易于检测的假冒产品，例如将特级初榨橄榄油与大豆、葵花籽油或棕榈油与叶绿素或 β-胡萝卜素混合部分或全部混合。”

“Today, these crimes involve far more sophis­ti­cated frauds, mak­ing them dif­fi­cult to detect with stan­dard sci­en­tific analy­ses,” he added. ​“We often need to rely on genetic or other exper­i­men­tal analy­ses. In some cases, every indi­vid­ual batch of olive oil should be checked before blend­ing.”
“今天，这些犯罪涉及更复杂的欺诈行为，因此很难通过标准的科学分析来检测，“他补充道。“我们经常需要依赖遗传或其他实验分析。在某些情况下，每批橄榄油在混合前都应进行检查。

“Moreover, pack­ag­ing and label­ing meth­ods have also advanced,” Avagnale explained. ​“The use of high-qual­ity mate­ri­als and imag­i­na­tive names makes it even more chal­leng­ing to iden­tify non-com­pli­ant prod­ucts.”
“此外，包装和标签方法也取得了进步，“Avagnale 解释说。“使用高质量的材料和富有想象力的名称，使得识别不合规产品更具挑战性。”

NAS inves­ti­ga­tions may involve envi­ron­men­tal and phone sur­veil­lance, inspec­tions, con­trols, com­par­isons and exten­sive paper and elec­tronic doc­u­men­ta­tion analy­sis.
NAS 调查可能涉及环境和电话监控、检查、控制、比较以及广泛的纸质和电子文档分析。

“Additionally, com­pa­nies often oper­ate through net­works of shell com­pa­nies and use sys­tems of false invoic­ing, com­pli­cat­ing the recon­struc­tion of com­mer­cial trans­ac­tions,” Avagnale said. ​“These com­pa­nies are typ­i­cally linked to front­men.”
“此外，公司经常通过空壳公司网络运作，并使用虚假发票系统，使商业交易的重建复杂化，“Avagnale 说。“这些公司通常与主唱有联系。”

“In the end, inves­tiga­tive activ­i­ties often require the par­tic­i­pa­tion of inter­na­tional orga­ni­za­tions and spe­cific legal sup­port,” he added. ​“During many inves­ti­ga­tions, it turned out that some prod­ucts are pur­chased in one coun­try, processed in another and sold else­where, mak­ing con­trols more dif­fi­cult.”
“最后，调查活动通常需要国际组织的参与和具体的法律支持，“他补充道。“在许多调查中，事实证明，有些产品在一个国家购买，在另一个国家加工，然后在其他地方销售，这使得控制更加困难。”

Over 1,000 NAS agents are deployed across Italy, form­ing part of a broader food and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal safety net­work oper­at­ing through­out the E.U.
意大利各地部署了 1,000 多名 NAS 代理，构成了在整个欧盟运营的更广泛的食品和药品安全网络的一部分。

Italian law enforce­men­t’s coor­di­na­tion with national and inter­na­tional agen­cies allowed for some of the most sig­nif­i­cant anti-coun­ter­feit­ing and anti-fraud oper­a­tions con­ducted in more than one olive oil-pro­duc­ing coun­try.
意大利执法部门与国家和国际机构的协调允许在不止一个橄榄油生产国进行一些最重要的反假冒和反欺诈行动。

The most recent large-scale oper­a­tion involved dis­cov­er­ing more than 71 mil­lion tons of illicit oily sub­stances in the south­ern Italian region of Puglia.
最近的大规模行动涉及在意大利南部的普利亚大区发现了超过 7100 万吨的非法油性物质。

“With olive oil, NAS inves­ti­ga­tions often begin with on-the-spot checks, fre­quently ini­ti­ated by reports from con­sumers or asso­ci­a­tions,” Avagnale said.
“对于橄榄油，NAS 调查通常从现场检查开始，通常是由消费者或协会的报告发起的，“Avagnale 说。

NAS ver­i­fies com­pli­ance with reg­u­la­tions through sam­pling and exten­sive lab­o­ra­tory analy­sis.
NAS 通过采样和广泛的实验室分析来验证是否符合法规。

“When a non-com­pli­ant prod­uct is iden­ti­fied, safe­guard pro­ce­dures are imme­di­ately imple­mented,” Avagnale said. ​“These mea­sures include sus­pend­ing the busi­ness license, with­draw­ing the spe­cific prod­uct and con­duct­ing fur­ther ver­i­fi­ca­tion activ­i­ties related to the pro­duc­tion chain, trace­abil­ity and com­mer­cial dis­tri­b­u­tion.”
“当发现不合规产品时，会立即实施保护程序，“Avagnale 说。“这些措施包括吊销营业执照、撤销特定产品以及进行与生产链、可追溯性和商业分销相关的进一步验证活动。”

To help com­bat the inter­na­tional nature of food and olive oil fraud, E.U.-wide alert sys­tems, such as RASFF (Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed), are inte­grated into NAS activ­i­ties.
为了帮助打击食品和橄榄油欺诈的国际性质，欧盟范围内的警报系统，例如 RASFF（食品和饲料快速警报系统），被整合到 NAS 活动中。

“Established in the late 1970s, this tool has evolved to include mate­ri­als and objects intended to come into con­tact with food, as well as pet food,” Avagnale said. ​“The sys­tem is acces­si­ble online, allow­ing all par­tic­i­pants to share, acti­vate and notify rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion in real-time.”
“该工具成立于 1970 年代后期，现已发展到包括旨在与食物以及宠物食品接触的材料和物体，“Avagnale 说。“该系统可在线访问，允许所有参与者实时共享、激活和通知相关信息。”

Avagnale empha­sized that con­sumers can play a cru­cial role in reduc­ing and com­bat­ing food fraud, par­tic­u­larly in the olive oil sec­tor, list­ing some sim­ple rec­om­men­da­tions con­sumers may fol­low:
Avagnale 强调，消费者可以在减少和打击食品欺诈方面发挥关键作用，尤其是在橄榄油领域，并列出了消费者可以遵循的一些简单建议：

• Purchase prod­ucts from trusted stores and mar­kets, not from impro­vised ven­dors;
  从值得信赖的商店和市场购买产品，而不是从临时供应商那里购买产品;
• Learn how to rec­og­nize raw mate­ri­als, their ori­gins and their his­tory;
  学习如何识别原材料、它们的来源和历史;
• Read prod­uct labels care­fully before pur­chas­ing to under­stand the exact com­po­si­tion of the food (ingre­di­ents, addi­tives, preser­v­a­tives), stor­age meth­ods, expi­ra­tion date, pro­duc­er’s name, pro­duc­tion batch, and the ori­gin of raw mate­ri­als;
  购买前应仔细阅读产品标签，了解食物的确切成分（成分、添加剂、防腐剂）、贮存方法、食用期限、生产商名称、生产批次和原材料来源;
• Give pref­er­ence to sea­sonal foods with a ​“short sup­ply chain” or ​“zero kilo­me­ters,” and opt for healthy, prefer­ably home-cooked, meals;
  优先选择“供应链短”或“零公里”的时令食品，并选择健康，最好是家常菜;
• Be wary of over-processed food with numer­ous ingre­di­ents and unclear or barely read­able labels;
  警惕成分众多、标签不清晰或几乎无法阅读的过度加工食品;
• Learn to rec­og­nize the dis­tinct char­ac­ter­is­tics of foods;
  学会识别食物的独特特征;
• Exercise cau­tion with low prices.
  谨慎使用低价。

“A very low price for prod­ucts like extra vir­gin olive oil is often a sign of low-qual­ity oil, likely imported or blended with seed oil,” Avagnale said, pro­vid­ing a spe­cific exam­ple of a NAS inves­ti­ga­tion into olive oil fraud.
“特级初榨橄榄油等产品的价格非常低通常是劣质油的标志，可能是进口的或与种子油混合的，“Avagnale 说，并提供了 NAS 对橄榄油欺诈进行调查的具体示例。

“It resulted in the judi­cial recog­ni­tion of crim­i­nal respon­si­bil­ity for all involved, lead­ing to var­i­ous prison sen­tences and addi­tional penal­ties, includ­ing trad­ing pro­hi­bi­tions,” he said.
“它导致司法承认了所有涉案人员的刑事责任，导致了各种监禁和额外处罚，包括交易禁令，“他说。

The inves­ti­ga­tion began with a doc­u­ment search that uncov­ered hand­writ­ten note­books and fold­ers con­tain­ing off-the-books records hid­den inside a trap­door.
调查从文件搜索开始，发现了手写笔记本和文件夹，其中包含隐藏在活板门内的账外记录。

“The com­pany under inves­ti­ga­tion oper­ated with a pyra­mi­dal struc­ture: the chair­man of the board of direc­tors, who led the orga­ni­za­tion, man­aged intra-com­mu­nity oil trades, directed employ­ees in assem­bling each batch, and super­vised the chem­i­cal lab­o­ra­to­ry’s work,” Avagnale said.
“被调查的公司采用金字塔结构：董事会主席领导该组织，管理社区内部的石油贸易，指导员工组装每批产品，并监督化学实验室的工作，“Avagnale 说。

“Next in line was the admin­is­tra­tive direc­tor, who acted in place of the chair­man dur­ing his absence and man­aged rela­tion­ships with the banks,” he added. ​“As for the employ­ees, one man­aged the place­ment of bulk prod­ucts in the mar­ket, while another served as the sales rep­re­sen­ta­tive.”
“接下来是行政总监，他在董事长缺席期间代替董事长行事，并管理与银行的关系，“他补充道。“至于员工，一名负责管理散装产品在市场上的投放，而另一名则担任销售代表。”

Meanwhile, Avagnale said another employee han­dled the prod­ucts’ con­sti­tu­tion, assem­bly and fil­tra­tion, which were then stored in the company’s ware­house.
与此同时，Avagnale 表示，另一名员工负责产品的组成、组装和过滤，然后存放在公司的仓库中。

“He was often respon­si­ble for blend­ing the prod­uct, strictly fol­low­ing the chair­man’s direc­tives,” Avagnale added. ​“Additionally, the com­pany employed an admin­is­tra­tive worker respon­si­ble for updat­ing the National Agricultural Information Service (SIAN).”
“他经常负责混合产品，严格遵循主席的指示，“Avagnale 补充道。“此外，该公司还聘请了一名负责更新国家农业信息服务 （SIAN） 的行政人员。”

SIAN is a manda­tory elec­tronic reg­is­ter where com­pa­nies must record every entry, with­drawal, and blend­ing of vir­gin and extra vir­gin olive oil. ​“It is part of an exten­sive con­trol sys­tem over­seen by exter­nal enti­ties like the ICQRF,” Avagnale said.
SIAN 是一个强制性的电子登记册，公司必须记录初榨橄榄油和特级初榨橄榄油的每次进入、提取和混合。“它是由 ICQRF 等外部实体监督的广泛控制系统的一部分，”Avagnale 说。

“The chair­man, the direc­tor and the employee respon­si­ble for main­tain­ing the SIAN reg­is­ter were charged with com­plic­ity in fal­si­fy­ing records and noti­fi­ca­tions under Article 484 of the Italian Penal Code,” he added. ​“They had entered false data into the sys­tem regard­ing the pur­chase, move­ment, and pro­cess­ing of the oil batches stored in the com­pany, intend­ing to mar­ket vir­gin and extra vir­gin olive oil.”
“根据意大利刑法典第 484 条，主席、董事和负责维护 SIAN 登记册的员工被指控共谋伪造记录和通知，“他补充道。“他们在系统中输入了有关购买、移动和加工公司存储的油批次的虚假数据，打算销售初榨橄榄油和特级初榨橄榄油。”

“The com­par­i­son between account­ing and non-account­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion, the results from the SIAN elec­tronic reg­is­ter, and sur­veil­lance activ­i­ties revealed dis­crep­an­cies between what was offi­cially recorded and what was sold, indi­cat­ing efforts by the com­pany to con­ceal fraud from the con­trol author­i­ties,” Avagnale explained.
“会计和非会计凭证之间的比较、SIAN 电子登记册的结果以及监控活动揭示了官方记录的内容与出售的内容之间存在差异，这表明该公司试图向控制机构隐瞒欺诈行为，“Avagnale 解释说。

The alleged fraud was cat­e­go­rized into com­mer­cial fraud, related to the pro­duc­t’s organolep­tic char­ac­ter­is­tics, and fraud con­cern­ing geo­graph­i­cal ori­gin, which involved ille­gal blend­ing.
涉嫌欺诈分为商业欺诈（与产品的感官特性有关）和涉及地理来源的欺诈（涉及非法混合）。

“In the inves­ti­ga­tions con­cern­ing fraud related to the pro­duc­t’s organolep­tic char­ac­ter­is­tics, inves­ti­ga­tors uti­lized envi­ron­men­tal and wire sur­veil­lance in addi­tion to ana­lyz­ing account­ing and non-account­ing records,” Avagnale said.
“在对与产品感官特性相关的欺诈行为的调查中，调查人员除了分析会计和非会计记录外，还利用了环境和网络监控，“Avagnale 说。

“What enabled inves­ti­ga­tors to obtain a detailed and accu­rate under­stand­ing of events were the note­books, man­u­scripts and fold­ers labeled ​‘inter­nal cuts’ and other sim­i­lar records,” he added. ​“The ille­gal activ­ity involved the national and inter­na­tional whole­sale of large batches of olive oil.”
“使调查人员能够对事件进行详细和准确的了解的是那些标有'内部剪辑'的笔记本、手稿和文件夹以及其他类似记录，“他补充说。“非法活动涉及大批量橄榄油的国内和国际批发。”

Avagnale said the doc­u­ments detailed how the com­pany imported lam­pante olive oil from Spain and Italy in bulk before blend­ing them, bot­tling and label­ing the prod­uct as extra vir­gin olive oil.
Avagnale 表示，这些文件详细说明了该公司如何从西班牙和意大利批量进口 lampante 橄榄油，然后再将它们混合、装瓶并将产品标记为特级初榨橄榄油。

“This was sup­ported by chem­i­cal-phys­i­cal and organolep­tic con­trols con­ducted by the inter­nal lab­o­ra­tory,” Avagnale explained. ​“These mate­ri­als were irreg­u­lar, con­sist­ing of prod­ucts with very high lev­els of per­ox­ide and acid­ity.”.
“这得到了内部实验室进行的化学物理和感官控制的支持，“Avagnale 解释说。“这些材料是不规则的，由过氧化物和酸度非常高的产品组成。”

“Furthermore, large quan­ti­ties of olive oil dif­fered in ori­gin and qual­ity due to using raw mate­ri­als of vary­ing nature and ori­gin,” he added. ​“Nevertheless, they were sold to buy­ers and labeled as extra vir­gin olive oil or 100 per­cent Italian extra vir­gin olive oil, lead­ing to charges under Articles 515 and 517-bis of the Italian Penal Code for com­mer­cial fraud, aggra­vated by the mis­use of the ori­gin pro­tec­tion mark.”
“此外，由于使用了不同性质和来源的原材料，大量的橄榄油在来源和质量上存在差异，“他补充道。“尽管如此，它们还是被卖给了买家，并被贴上了特级初榨橄榄油或 100% 意大利特级初榨橄榄油的标签，导致根据意大利刑法典第 515 条和第 517-二条被指控商业欺诈，滥用原产地保护标志加剧了这种情况。”