China cracks down on fake lamb

Chinese police have broken up a criminal ring accused of harvesting meat from rats and foxes and selling it as lamb in the country's latest food safety scandal. According to the Ministry of Public Security, the suspects ran an operation in Shanghai and the coastal city of Wuxi, selling the meat to farmers' markets in Jiangsu province and Shanghai.

The putrid smell of whatever this is suffocates the room and beyond.

The idea runs completely counter to pleasant dining experiences such as this.

Recurrent food safety scandals in China have put the country's authorities on high alert but despite the frequent occurrence of unsanitary food production bases, this perhaps takes the cake..: fox and rat meat disguised as lamb.

"There's barely any profit in selling real lamb. It happened that somebody contacted me about selling fake lamb. So I went along with it," suspect said.

Wei is one of 63 people arrested for running an operation in east China that sold fox, mink, rat and other meat that had not been tested for quality and safety, processed it with additives like gelatin and passed it off as lamb.

Wei says there are many more still doing what he was doing and he urges them to stop or face the consequences.

"This roll here is not pure lamb. There's chicken and duck meat in it. But if you want cheaper ones, there are worse kinds," fake lamb supplier said.

In this case, the authorities had the upper hand. But the war on fake lamb is far from over.

"When we do regular checks, we examine by touching and smelling the meat. Sometimes it's hard to tell," said law enforcement staff of Shanghai Food & Drug Admin.

Despite years of food scandals, China has been slow to clean up its food supply chain. And experts say the buck should stop at the regulatory bodies.

"I think the only way to solve this is for the government and its regulatory bodies to closely monitor food supply chains, and punish severely those who do wrong," said Ma Zhiying, CTO of Shanghai Food Institute

China's top court issued guidelines calling for harsher punishment for making and selling unsafe food products last Friday. It specifically mentioned that negligent government food inspectors are also targeted for criminal punishment.