Supreme Court Confirms Prison Sentence for Group Selling 'Yukajong' Pork Neck Meat to Be Discarded

56 Tons and Over 150 Million Won Sold Across 300 Sessions

Supreme Court in Seocho-dong, Seoul. [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin, Legal Affairs Specialist] A group involved in purchasing pork neck meat with granulomas, which should have been discarded, at a low price, processing it, and selling it has been sentenced to imprisonment.

Granulomas (肉芽腫) refer to inflammatory lesions characterized by nodular or infiltrative nodules of various sizes spread throughout the body, visible to the naked eye. When vaccinating pigs against foot-and-mouth disease, injections are administered in the neck area. If the vaccination site is contaminated or the injection needle is unhygienic, bacterial infection can cause purulent granulomas at the injection site. Granulomas are classified into purulent granulomas caused by pus formation and non-purulent granulomas caused by immune responses to the vaccine.

The Supreme Court’s First Division (Presiding Justice No Tae-ak) confirmed the original sentences on the 6th, sentencing B (54), CEO of company A, a secondary meat packaging and processing company located in Seo-gu, Incheon, to 1 year and 6 months imprisonment, and C (57), director of the same company, to 2 years imprisonment for violating the Livestock Products Sanitary Control Act. D (49), a meat processing worker employed by company A, was sentenced to 1 year imprisonment with a 2-year probation.

B and C were indicted for purchasing 56 tons of pork neck meat with granulomas, which should have been discarded, at a low price from company E, a meat packaging and processing company in Cheongwon-gu, Cheongju City, from May 2017 to around July 2018. They removed the visibly abnormal parts with a knife and processed the remaining meat into chopped meat for sale. D was responsible for removing the abnormal parts of the neck meat.

It was investigated that B and others sold pork neck meat with granulomas supplied by company E in May 2017 to company S, a client, on the 25th of the same month, at 3,500 KRW per gram of granuloma, totaling 21 grams for 73,500 KRW. During the period, they sold over 56 tons (56,144 grams of granuloma) of pork with granulomas in about 300 transactions, earning approximately 150 million KRW in profits.

In the first and second trials, B and others argued that the test reports from the Gyeonggi-do Animal Hygiene Testing Laboratory submitted as evidence could not be considered valid because there were storage issues during the collection of samples or feed.

However, the court rejected these claims based on testimonies from a public official of Seo-gu, Incheon, who participated in the seizure of pork at company A, stating that "the items to be seized were stored in boxes inside a refrigerator, which was functioning normally," and that "regardless of the environment or time taken to transport the seized pork to the Gyeonggi-do Animal Hygiene Testing Laboratory, there was no possibility of new purulent lesions developing on the pork."

Additionally, B and others claimed that the "pork neck meat with granulomas" they processed and sold did not fall under "livestock products that may harm human health" as defined in Article 33, Paragraph 1, Subparagraph 4 of the Livestock Products Sanitary Control Act, and that since they removed the purulent parts before processing and selling, it was not harmful to humans.

However, the court did not accept their claims, noting that Article 33, Paragraph 1, Subparagraph 4 prohibits the sale of livestock products that may harm human health, not only those that actually harm it, and that during slaughtering and deboning, it is impossible to remove only the purulent parts, so the purulent parts and surrounding areas are removed together and treated as waste for disposal.

In particular, the court’s judgment was supported by the testimony of a livestock industry veteran with 30 years of experience, who stated that "when purulence is found, the affected area is cut as widely as possible and discarded, and the neck meat from which the purulence was removed is classified separately as Grade B neck meat," and by a statement from an employee responsible for collecting meat at company E’s first factory, who told the police, "The line I brought meat from was a line producing scrap bones and waste not suitable for consumption, and the executive director of the first factory said, 'You must never take this meat. It is inedible, and if you take it, you will go to prison.'"

The Supreme Court dismissed B’s appeal, stating that "there is no error in the lower court’s judgment as claimed in the grounds for appeal, such as violating the rules of logic and experience, exceeding the limits of free evaluation of evidence, or misinterpreting the legal provisions regarding 'risk of harm to human health' under Article 33, Paragraph 1, Subparagraph 4 of the Livestock Products Sanitary Control Act, or the principles of legality and intent."

Furthermore, the Supreme Court pointed out that since C and D only argued that the sentencing was excessive in their appeal against the first trial verdict, their claims of legal error against the second trial verdict cannot be considered valid grounds for appeal, and thus dismissed their appeals as well.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.