Frozen meat from the 1970s seized in China
Hundreds of tons of meat worth $1.6 million seized
The meat was bound for restaurants, retailers and supermarkets in Hunan province, where it was found, and other Chinese provinces and major cities, according to a report from Xinhua, China's state news agency, on Tuesday.
The meat, which included poultry and beef, was confiscated on June 1 and was worth 10 million yuan ($1.6 million), the English-language China Daily said.
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Some packages were rotten and others were around 40 years old -- packed and stamped at the height of China's Cultural Revolution.
"The products fully filled an entire compartment. It was really smelly, and I nearly threw up when I opened the door," the China Daily quoted Zhang Tao, a local official, as saying.
CNN contacted customs authorities in Changsha, the provincial capital of Hunan, which said that local media reports on the meat seizures were correct but declined to give further details.
Month-long operation
Including the most recent operation, this month Chinese customs officials have seized more than 100,000 tonnes of smuggled frozen meat worth almost $500 million in crackdowns across 14 provinces and detained 21 smuggling groups, Xinhua reported.
The China Daily report quoted unnamed experts as saying that, as long as frozen meat shows no signs of thawing, customers can't tell fresh meat from meat that is decades old.
