1 Million Pounds Of Pork Seized In NJ Amid Swine Fever Outbreak

The US Customs and Border Protection stopped an attempt to smuggle 1 million pounds of pork from Asia to a New Jersey port on Friday, coming on the heels of African swine fever raging through China.

The disease has devasated the hog population in, China, the world’s largest pork-producing country, according to federal officials.

“This was highly orchestrated,” Stephen Maloney, US Customs and Border Protection’s acting port director for the Port of New York/Newark, said.

Maloney said this was a concerted effort to conceal product, saying than 100 CBP agricultural specialists and K-9 teams worked to uncover the prohibited food, according to the CBP. The pork was smuggled in anything from ramen noodle bowls to Tide detergent containers, according to the report.

CBP teams say they're working hard to keep ASF, a highly transmissible, deadly virus of pigs, out of the United States, noting that the disease does not affect humans.

Officials announced this seizure of more than 50 shipping containers during a press conference Friday at a warehouse in Elizabeth, according to Anthony L. Bucci, a spokesperson for the US Customs and Border Protection. Three rooms were filled wall-to-wall with packages of the illegally smuggled pork products.