eBay egg importer fined $45,000
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03/06/2015. 13:08
KoreaPost
A chicken
enthusiast put the New Zealand poultry industry and native bird population at
risk by attempting to illegally import live eggs for her hobby, the Auckland
District Court heard on Friday (29 May 2015).
Karen Joanne
Legget, 52, of New Plymouth, had earlier been found guilty of three Biosecurity
Act charges of knowingly possessing unauthorised goods, in a trial by judge
alone in Auckland District Court in March 2015.
Judge
Blackie fined Ms Leggett $15,000 on each charge and $630 costs - $45,630 in
total.
Ministry for
Primary Industries Northern Investigations Manager David Blake says this was a
deliberate and calculated attempt to avoid New Zealand’s biosecurity measures by
someone who understood the system.
“She put the
poultry industry and wild bird populations at considerable risk in order to
hatch eggs for her own enjoyment. The serious nature of her actions has been
reflected in the sentence.”
An
investigation by the Ministry for Primary Industries revealed that Ms Legget, a
chicken hobby farmer, had purchased live eggs in auctions on the eBay website
from vendors in Scotland, England and Wales.
She had them
delivered to a friend’s address in England who carefully packaged them to avoid
breaking and falsely declared them as “chocolate eggs” on a United Kingdom
customs form.
Three separate
packages were identified as “risk material” by X-ray as part of MPI’s
biosecurity system, and intercepted at the Auckland International Mail Centre.
The eggs had
not been sterilised and there was still dirt and faeces on some of the eggs.
The presence of faeces, dirt and debris from farm regions increases the number
of serious diseases that could be present.
Illegal
imports of live eggs could introduce diseases to New Zealand such as avian
influenza which has devastated poultry farms in parts of Asia, Africa and
Europe since 2003.
The New
Zealand poultry meat and egg industries provide over 4,000 jobs and earn over
$2 billion a year.
MPI Media media@mpi.govt.nz
