Andronicos Sideras (55) received a four-and-a-half-year jail sentence, while Ulrik Nielsen (58) was jailed for three and a half years. Alex Beech (44) was given a suspended 18-month sentence for working with Nielson on the fraudulent sale of horsemeat as beef.

A London court had found Sideras guilty last week, while Nielsen and Beech pleaded guilty last year.

Microchips and fingerprints

According to the BBC, police testifying in the case said officers had sifted through 12t of meat by hand and found identification microchips belonging to horses in consignments passed as beef, including one Irish horse.

According to the Guardian, Sideras was arrested in July 2013 after his fingerprints were found on suspect labels attached to a shipment of what investigators found to be a mix of about 30% horsemeat and 70% beef in Northern Ireland.

The convictions come days after Europol arrested 66 people as part of continuing EU-wide investigations into the fraudulent sale of horsemeat as beef.

The scam was first exposed when the Food Safety Authority of Ireland detected horsemeat in beef burgers in 2013.

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