Horses Making a Killing - full documentary - video Dailymotion

Irish Council Against Blood Sports

RTE Investigates: Horses - Making a Killing  Copyright RTE Television, 12 June 2024  https://www.rte.ie/player/movie/rt%C3%A9-investigates-horses-making-a-killing/525555751982   ACTION ALERT    Demand a permanent closure of Shannonside Foods horse slaughterhouse and prosecutions of those filmed abusing horses. Contact Minister Charlie McConalogue.   Charlie McConalogue  Minister for Agriculture  Tel: 01 618 3199 or 01 607 2000  Email: minister@agriculture.gov.ie; charlie.mcconalogue@oireachtas.ie  Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CharlieMcConalogue  Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/@McConalogue   Contact the Gardai and demand a prosecution of those filmed abusing horses in the “Horses: Making a Killing” documentary.   An Garda Síochána Headquarters  Phoenix Park, Dublin 8, D08 HN3X  Telephone:+353 1 666 0000   Don’t attend races or bet on racing.   Why you should say NO to horse racing – download and distribute the leaflet  https://banbloodsports.wordpress.com/2023/08/05/new-leaflet-why-you-should-say-no-to-horse-racing    Demand an end to the government’s massive grants to horse and greyhound racing – more than €1.7 Billion (€1,736,071,127) handed over since 2001, including €95 million for 2024. Contact the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Finance Minister now.   Taoiseach Simon Harris TD  Telephone: +353 (0)1 618 3805 or +353 (0)1 889 2442  Email: simon.harris@oireachtas.ie; finegael@finegael.ie  X: http://www.twitter.com/SimonHarrisTD  Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/DeputySimonHarris   Tanaiste Micheál Martin TD  Email: micheal.martin@oireachtas.ie; info@fiannafail.ie  Phone: +353 (0)1–618 4350 or +353 (0)21-432 0088  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michealmartintd/  X: http://www.twitter.com/@MichealMartinTD   Jack Chambers TD  Minister for Finance  Email: Minister@finance.gov.ie  Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jackchambersff/  Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackfchambers   Sign and share the petitions   Irish Government: Stop giving millions of euros to horse racing  https://www.change.org/p/irish-government-stop-giving-millions-of-euros-to-horse-racing   Irish Government: Stop Giving Millions of Euro to Cruel Greyhound Racing  https://www.change.org/p/irish-government-stop-giving-millions-of-euro-to-cruel-greyhound-racing

Transcript

00:00:00It's impossible to overstate the special place horses have held in Irish life.

00:00:11They are our pets, our hunters, our sports stars.

00:00:16Horses are woven into the fabric of our culture.

00:00:20Racehorses are said to be worth 2.5 billion euro a year to our economy.

00:00:26Sport horses add another 1 billion euro a year in value.

00:00:31And that's not to mention the financial windfall from our traditional fares.

00:00:36To feed this, 30,000 foals are born each year.

00:00:41This is our equine industry and it has become the envy of the world.

00:00:48But did you ever wonder where they all went after their races were run?

00:00:53To find answers, we embarked on an unprecedented investigation, journeying across Ireland and

00:00:59Europe to learn how people made money by changing horses' identities.

00:01:08While others flogged animals to international traders.

00:01:14And how, at home, once performance and promise subside, these highly prized assets can be

00:01:20discarded and treated like scrap.

00:01:35In Ireland, we have a love affair with horses.

00:01:37But what happens when they're no longer useful, or they're too expensive to keep?

00:01:42This seems a simple question, and some people don't want it asked.

00:01:47But what we find shocks and raises serious questions for the industry and the authorities.

00:01:53Because efforts to count our horses in a census have failed.

00:01:57And despite specific laws requiring every horse to be identified and traced, on paper

00:02:04thousands of horses just vanish.

00:02:06If proof was needed, just look among the hundreds of horses abandoned in Ireland each year.

00:02:12They are lucky to find space in places like this packed sanctuary near Lough Derg.

00:02:17A lot of our horses, when they come in, they're in very, very poor condition with a lot of

00:02:22injuries, burns.

00:02:25Starvation is the main thing.

00:02:26Yeah, we'd have started probably with eight or ten horses, but all of a sudden the numbers

00:02:32started coming in bigger and kept going.

00:02:36And it could be bigger now, only that we have to draw a line under it.

00:02:42We keep this group for ones with serious problems.

00:02:44The problem with this horse, poor condition because of a displaced hip.

00:02:50This horse here is blind.

00:02:54This one here is a very old horse, would be close to 38 or 39 years of age.

00:03:01For many owners of old breeds, their horses simply live too long.

00:03:05When the costs come into it or they get tired looking after it, it's just abandoned.

00:03:11Horses could be traded for 10 euro, maybe less, maybe a packet of cigarettes.

00:03:18With rescues full, what happens to the rest?

00:03:21Obviously some horses die naturally or are humanely put down.

00:03:25Some 3,000 of the entire horse population are brought to Macquarie's each year, where

00:03:31their meat is processed for dog food.

00:03:34But you would have to pay a few hundred euro to have a horse euthanized.

00:03:38Well you can avoid this, or even make a few hundred, if it is sold for slaughter and human

00:03:44consumption.

00:03:45And this is where it happens.

00:03:48The kill room in Ireland's last operating horse abattoir.

00:03:52Here Wednesday is killing day, when about 65 horses are typically slaughtered for human

00:03:58consumption and the meat sent to France.

00:04:08So we wouldn't have a tradition in Ireland consuming horse meat, that wouldn't be our

00:04:11tradition but horses are slaughtered in Ireland that are then exported to countries that would

00:04:17consume horses, horse meat.

00:04:21In France, last year we imported 2,500 tons of horse meat.

00:04:29Out of that, 400 tons are coming directly from Ireland.

00:04:35It had never been possible to fully explore the link between the racing and slaughter

00:04:39industries.

00:04:40But we got hold of records that allowed us to study this for the first time.

00:04:45This allowed us to track back and identify more than 2,000 horses that passed through

00:04:51this kill room between January 2023 and March this year.

00:04:57The majority were thoroughbred racers, competitors who between them had raced more than 3,000

00:05:03times, earning their owners more than 1.5 million euro on tracks across Ireland, the

00:05:09UK and France, as well as multiples of that for punters.

00:05:14However this is controversial among welfare groups, regulators and within the industry

00:05:19itself.

00:05:20In Ireland, you know, horses are generally raised for being companion animals or for

00:05:26racing animals.

00:05:28Their purpose is not to be raised as a source of food.

00:05:34The rules of the sport previously recommended that all racehorses be stamped out of the

00:05:39food chain because of the risks from medicines commonly used to treat horses, until EU laws

00:05:45changed in 2021 and the rule was scrapped.

00:05:50We examined the horses passing through the slaughterhouse and we identified slaughtered

00:05:55horses that had been owned and trained at some of the country's most successful stables,

00:06:01some having been raced weeks and sometimes even days earlier, and up to then would have

00:06:07enjoyed the high standards in place at regulated trainers' yards.

00:06:12It included successful names who had been involved in the ownership and training of

00:06:17multiple horses dispatched in the kill room, including racers that came from top trainer

00:06:24Philip Rothwell, billionaire Luke Comer and the international award winner John Shark-Hanlon.

00:06:32Mr Hanlon said five horses we identified had suffered serious injuries, rehoming them was

00:06:38not possible and that putting them to sleep was the most humane option available.

00:06:44Mr Comer said he had sold his six horses to a dealer to retrain them as riding horses

00:06:51and he was saddened that they had ended up in an equine slaughter facility.

00:06:55Mr Rothwell did not respond.

00:06:58The Irish racing industry will receive 76 million euro in state support this year, however

00:07:05there is little guidance on slaughtering.

00:07:07We asked Horse Racing Ireland for its position on the slaughter of racehorses.

00:07:12It said it supports euthanising of horses in a humane, ethical and appropriate manner

00:07:18in situations where there's a high risk to the quality of life or diminished circumstances

00:07:23for a horse.

00:07:26But the slaughterhouse is only part of the story.

00:07:29In Ireland, approximately one in seven horses go to the slaughterhouse or to a knackery.

00:07:36What happens to the rest?

00:07:38We broke down the figures and we export thousands of all breeds.

00:07:44Whether our source was the CSO, customs or animal health movements, the figures did not

00:07:49add up.

00:07:51More than 30,000 horses are entering the system every year, but nowhere near that either die

00:07:57or get exported.

00:08:00In fact, the figures told us that every year 20,000 horses were, on paper, vanishing without

00:08:07a trace and bizarrely horse smuggling seems to be part of the reason why.

00:08:14I know it's a really surprising thing that an animal the size of a horse can be smuggled.

00:08:21I think what is going on is because a horse can have different jobs throughout its life,

00:08:25it can be moved for different reasons, that it creates almost an opportunity for it to

00:08:32be invisible.

00:08:35So where are they going?

00:08:37Ironically, something the size of a horse was very difficult to track.

00:08:41But a tiny piece of technology inserted into the horse, a microchip, made tracking the

00:08:47animals a whole lot easier.

00:08:50So this is the packet that microchips come in and then you get a pack of stickers and

00:08:54each one of these is individual and they have a unique 15 digit number and then that gets

00:08:59stuck straight into the horse.

00:09:01These microchips leave electronic records when they are processed in different countries.

00:09:08We wrangled hundreds of thousands of numbers from across Europe and used powerful computer

00:09:13processing to point us to links.

00:09:16Often I say follow the money, I mean your investigation, actually it's follow the chips.

00:09:22As we started following the trail of microchips, we did not expect that it would lead us to

00:09:27the winter roads of Sweden.

00:09:30In recent years, thousands of Irish jumping and leisure horses have crossed the Baltic

00:09:35Sea for new lives in Sweden.

00:09:40The horses are mainly sold online, which is far from a straightforward business.

00:09:46Each horse is unique, with its own temperament, ability and injury profile.

00:09:51All of this impacts on its value.

00:09:54So it's important to know the real history of the horse, because in the wrong environment,

00:09:59a horse can be very dangerous.

00:10:05After she paid her money and papers were organised, the horse arrived from Ireland

00:10:20and her daughter began riding it.

00:10:35For safety reasons, the horse was sold on to an experienced horse handler to rehabilitate

00:11:05her, but not without problems of her own.

00:11:35Yet there was more to the story of Irish horses in Sweden than horses which are difficult

00:11:45or dangerous.

00:11:52If you're to believe official Irish figures, then only a handful of horses are exported

00:11:56to Sweden every year.

00:11:58Yet if you look online and across social media, then there are many Swedish people who are

00:12:02looking to buy and own Irish horses.

00:12:05So we wrote to this place here, it's the Agriculture Ministry in Sweden.

00:12:09It provided data that showed thousands of horses had actually moved here from Ireland.

00:12:15Among those, we narrowed our investigation to focus on curious patterns among certain

00:12:20groups of horses, whose long microchip numbers were almost identical.

00:12:25And even though they had different ages, different breeds, different backgrounds, before they

00:12:29came here, they had all just been issued with new Northern Irish passports.

00:12:34And that common thread, we think, is leading us back to one prominent Irish dealer back

00:12:39in Sligo.

00:12:44Unusual microchip patterns highlighted a particular and prominent Irish seller who runs the Rockhouse

00:12:50stable in Sligo.

00:12:52His name is Felix Burke.

00:12:55Felix Burke, along with his son Edward, are prolific sellers of Irish horses across much

00:13:00of Northern Europe, but especially in Sweden.

00:13:04They told RTE Investigates they do not deal in racehorses and do not export horses for

00:13:10slaughter.

00:13:11They explain their customers buy for sport and recreation.

00:13:16They often buy at sales events, and these are reputable and well-run.

00:13:20Gorse Bridge in County Kilkenny hosts one of the biggest.

00:13:25Here, each sale is underpinned with inspections and declarations from independent vets.

00:13:31We filmed Mr Burke active at one of its public auctions.

00:13:51Since early 2021, Mr Burke has been the second most prolific buyer at Gorse Bridge, and his

00:13:56business has spent more than 400,000 euro on mostly low-cost horses here.

00:14:03But what happens after some of those horses are bought by Burke can be a mystery.

00:14:09To understand this, we needed to track down the horses to their new lives in Sweden.

00:14:22We're here in rural Sweden where a particular Irish horse has been put up for sale on the

00:14:26classified ads.

00:14:28We've enlisted the help of a local Swedish journalist, and she's in with the seller right

00:14:32now.

00:14:33She's looking for any details, anything about the horse that is going to help us crack the

00:14:37case back home.

00:14:40So what were you able to find out when you did get access to the passport?

00:14:45Yes, we could see that the passport was made in Northern Ireland, and it was issued about

00:14:50at 2022.

00:14:54To prove a pattern, we had to locate other horses with similar passports and microchips,

00:15:00and crucially, try to follow the trail from the very start, which led us to Finis Sally.

00:15:08She was then a 15-year-old mare who had competed in competitions and even had her own dedicated

00:15:13social media profile.

00:15:16She was sold at Gorse Bridge in July 2022, along with an independent veterinary cert.

00:15:23She was an Irish horse with an Irish microchip in her neck.

00:15:27The buyer was Felix Burke, who paid 2,900 euro for her on July 8, 2022.

00:15:35We could find no record of her afterwards.

00:15:38On paper, Finis Sally had vanished.

00:15:42In Sweden, Import Records directed us to her doppelganger, Rockhouse Venus, sold in July

00:15:492022 for almost 5,000 euro.

00:15:53But something was off.

00:15:55Could this be the same Finis Sally that was sold at Gorse Bridge, but now turning up five

00:16:00years younger and Northern Irish?

00:16:04Our Swedish colleague was able to track Venus down to a farm near Gothenburg, where her

00:16:09current owner, Tresa Jofason, agreed to let us check out the horse.

00:16:15It was time to see if Rockhouse Venus could tell us what had happened to the disappeared

00:16:21Finis Sally.

00:16:24We scanned for the first chip.

00:16:33We scanned again.

00:16:36Yeah, there's a second chip.

00:16:42You found the second chip?

00:16:43Yeah.

00:16:44Right.

00:16:45This horse had another identity before.

00:16:49A horse with two entirely different but readable microchips is not the norm.

00:16:56Rockhouse Venus had a new chip that matched her passport from the Northern Irish Horseboard

00:17:00Co-op.

00:17:02But she also had the chip belonging to the missing Finis Sally.

00:17:08Here she was in Sweden with a new name and a new passport supplied to Mr. Burke eight

00:17:14days after he bought her.

00:17:16She also had become four years younger.

00:17:31By falsely lowering its age by four years, you can increase its value.

00:17:41Because when a horse turns 17 in Sweden, insurance and health care can cost more.

00:18:01Is it possible that Burke's were not aware of the strict laws in place?

00:18:09Perhaps.

00:18:10But we got hold of messages from a dispute between Edward Burke and Swedish buyer Sara

00:18:15Ericsson, where he explained the law to her.

00:18:19Hey, I bought a horse from you, David's lad.

00:18:24A vet in consultation with another vet disputes that he is not 13 years old.

00:18:28As it says in his passport, the vet says he is around 18 to 22 years old.

00:18:33Hi, Sara.

00:18:34I don't think there can be a mistake with the passport.

00:18:38The passports are all approved and verified by the Irish veterinarians before they can

00:18:41be processed.

00:18:42I have put a lot of money on a horse I thought was 13 years old.

00:18:47You must understand that in order for the horse to get a passport in Ireland, the age,

00:18:51sex, marking chart, etc. are all verified firstly by an Irish vet and secondly by the

00:18:57passport agency who are approved by the Irish government.

00:19:00I do not agree with your vet's opinion at all and I think it is very possible in this

00:19:04case that they are mistaken.

00:19:08To resolve this, we arranged to check the microchip of the horse.

00:19:13This horse had two different microchips, two different identities, two different names

00:19:19and two different ages.

00:19:22Instead of getting a 13-year-old horse, David's lad, after paying more than €4,000 to the

00:19:27Berks, the horse was in fact a 22-year-old horse called Don Rafael.

00:19:34Horses should not have two microchips.

00:19:36The legislation is very clear that they should have one identity and that identity is for

00:19:40the duration of their lifetime.

00:19:42So it shouldn't be the case that equines have two identities or have two microchips.

00:19:48The Northern Irish Horseport Co-op issued numerous passports for Berk horses.

00:19:53It said the applications it received already contained the microchip number and said it

00:19:58would carry out a review to address the concerns raised.

00:20:02In correspondence with RTE Investigates, Felix and Edward Berk said in relation to Fenix

00:20:08Sally they discovered a microchip that did not relate to the passport.

00:20:12They said it was necessary to obtain a new passport to match the microchip number.

00:20:18They said the decision to apply for a passport in Northern Ireland was taken because it took

00:20:23a considerable amount of time for passports to issue in the Republic and this was not

00:20:27unusual.

00:20:29They said they relied on a highly qualified veterinary surgeon to assess the ages of the

00:20:34animals.

00:20:36In Northern Ireland, the Department of Agriculture said its officials are investigating all information

00:20:41provided by RTE Investigates and will not hesitate to take enforcement action if there

00:20:46is any evidence of wrongdoing.

00:20:49So the laws would state that an equine must be issued with a passport, so this passport

00:20:53is valid for the duration of the horse's life.

00:20:56So the 2015 regulations would state that it is an offence to have more than one identification

00:21:03document for an equine.

00:21:05Still to come, we look elsewhere at how massive numbers of horses are smuggled for slaughter

00:21:11across Europe, and we uncover the abuse suffered by some of those that stay at home.

00:21:23This is Rotterdam port, it's a busy place and most of the Irish horses that are coming

00:21:28into Europe are coming through ports like this.

00:21:30Now they're supposed to be subject to welfare checks, documentation checks, there should

00:21:35be paperwork there to tell us exactly what's happening to them, but for some reason so

00:21:40many horses are slipping through the cracks.

00:21:46Rotterdam is known as the gateway of Europe.

00:21:49It's true for lots of horses, but many are ultimately destined for Southern Europe, where

00:21:54horse meat is popular and even celebrated.

00:21:58Italy is Europe's biggest consumer.

00:22:01Here quality butchers like Andrea Pezzatini want to know exactly where their meat is coming

00:22:07from.

00:22:09The best part of a horse, like meat, is usually the steaks, the steaks, the steaks, these

00:22:17here with the bone, are the tastiest parts, the ones that are best eaten.

00:22:22Then it's processed in all sorts of ways, there are the meatballs, the hamburgers, the fillet,

00:22:26the slices, but most of it is steaks, steaks.

00:22:31People like it because this is a natural meat, so they feel it's tastier than the other one,

00:22:38they don't like it because it's not sophisticated, and then it's good because it carries a lot

00:22:44of iron, it has the fat, which are unsaturated fats, it doesn't have cholesterol.

00:22:51Mr Pezzatini sources his animals directly, because when they cross borders, the traceability

00:22:56of horse meat is reliant on the accuracy and authenticity of a horse's passport.

00:23:03The horse passport system, in my opinion, it's not fit for purpose, it really does

00:23:09not give that degree of traceability of horses.

00:23:13A horse's passport is not just a travel document, it holds a record of who the horse is and

00:23:19all prescribed medicines it has ever been given.

00:23:22It is supposed to match the microchip and it should be with the horse wherever it goes.

00:23:28So if the information on the front end is completely fabricated, it's false, then whatever

00:23:33information is on the chip is just going to confirm that fake or false information.

00:23:39So it doesn't confirm that the horse is actually the right horse connected to that identification.

00:23:45In terms of horses, there are several risks.

00:23:48One of those is often horses get treated with a wide variety of different drugs, like humans

00:23:55do, but particularly racehorses get treated with a drug known as phenobutazone, often

00:24:01known as Bute.

00:24:03Any animal treated with phenobutazone automatically becomes illegal for the meat from that animal

00:24:10to go into the food supply system because of food safety issues.

00:24:15This means a lot of our horses have treatment records that make them worthless to the horse

00:24:19meat market, unless criminals can make their old identity disappear and launder them with

00:24:25new, clean papers that will allow traders earn an extra few thousand euro for them in

00:24:31the slaughter trade.

00:24:33The amount of money that is made in fraud in the food system is amazing.

00:24:37In fact, it has been estimated that more money is made in fraud in the food system than is

00:24:42made in the heroin trade worldwide.

00:24:45That's what we're dealing with.

00:24:48In recent years, Europol has been involved in coordinated investigations involving Ireland

00:24:54and other European countries to break up criminal gangs trafficking horses.

00:25:01The case we have been dealing with over the last few years deal with criminal networks

00:25:07operating in the food supply chain, substituting passports, microchipping horses, and committing

00:25:15crime that might have health implications.

00:25:18Well, the benefit, of course, is that you can make money off from a product that really

00:25:23doesn't have a lot of value, maybe.

00:25:26And not only that, the consequences of doing it are relatively low.

00:25:33Criminals were able to retrieve or to collect horses that were not initially intended to

00:25:38be destinated to the slaughterhouses.

00:25:42So they just provide horses with a fake identity.

00:25:46Then those horses were shipped to other countries and different slaughterhouses.

00:25:52An even more recent raid saw police swoop on Spanish farms.

00:25:56Spain supplies a lot of European slaughterhouses with horses.

00:26:00But to our surprise, its trade records revealed 10,000 horses arrived there from Ireland for

00:26:06slaughter since 2017.

00:26:10Surprised because there wasn't a hint of this in the official Irish figures.

00:26:13When we queried it with Spanish customs, it said from the sample it could look at, every

00:26:18single horse that left this island had actually started their journey here in Northern Ireland.

00:26:25The Department of Agriculture in Northern Ireland said it had no record of this, but

00:26:29said once a horse moved south or to Great Britain, it may be certified for export to

00:26:34Spain and the department cannot access data concerning any such export.

00:26:39This proved to be a significant issue.

00:26:43On the island of Ireland, we have the land border that we all know about, and that land

00:26:47border has created opportunities for people to cheat absolutely.

00:26:51Brexit is a great example of the opportunities.

00:26:58Doing business right costs a lot for reputable transport companies like this one near Dover.

00:27:04We've got eight people in the office that just do the paperwork.

00:27:08We've got 10 lorries, and each one of those lorries is roughly about £400,000 new.

00:27:17But they do the job right, and it's good for the horses.

00:27:23Less scrupulous transporters can cut corners by using substandard lorries, or illegally

00:27:28overloading them for sailings.

00:27:33Or just falsely claiming the UK horses began their journey in the Republic of Ireland.

00:27:40They're declaring that they're transiting through from Southern Ireland, which is obviously

00:27:44an EU country.

00:27:45So you can come across the UK with very little paperwork, and then there's no checks because

00:27:52that lorry is deemed to have come from the EU and going back to the EU.

00:27:56They're then dodging at least £500 per horse to get the horses out into Europe.

00:28:02In recent months, suspicions that this was happening were confirmed with a chance discovery

00:28:08at Dover of horses that had journeyed from Ireland.

00:28:12There were 26 horses and ponies on board a transporter that at maximum should have

00:28:17taken 16.

00:28:18So you're seeing a horse very frightened, cramped into a very small area.

00:28:25And the amount of urine apparently coming off the bottom of the transporter, which is

00:28:30what raised the authorities' awareness.

00:28:33The load was sent to Mr Parker's lairage for safekeeping.

00:28:38It included five pregnant mares, one very elderly horse with arthritis and another with

00:28:44equine influenza.

00:28:47Seven horses had not been declared.

00:28:50According to the paperwork, the 19 that had began their journey in Tipperary.

00:28:55We were able to clearly trace some of those horses to sales in England just days earlier.

00:29:02The load included this one with a questionable German microchip and a fraudulent UK passport.

00:29:08They have ultimately been transferred into the care of World Horse Welfare.

00:29:12Bizarrely, the customs declaration did not even declare the load had horses.

00:29:18The declaration presented was for a shipment of machinery.

00:29:23Commodity code on the customs document was for Mercedes van parts.

00:29:29When the truck arrives at Dover, they have a barcode on the customs document to scan.

00:29:35If the barcode scans, everything's OK, and they wave the lorry on, you see.

00:29:42UK authorities served welfare notices on those involved in the shipment, naming this man.

00:29:49Who is he?

00:29:50He was a key figure in one of Ireland's most famous horse-dealing families, Michael Cash.

00:29:57He operates from this farm, right on the outskirts of Monastirevan, County Kildare.

00:30:03Michael Cash and especially his father, Miley, are celebrated figures in the horse world.

00:30:08They are prolific buyers at traditional horse fairs and also buy and sell many ex-race horses

00:30:15and sport horses.

00:30:17Miley Cash is Ireland's biggest horse dealer and the grand old man of the fair.

00:30:24We tried to make sense of it by watching and monitoring the Cash family dealing at these

00:30:28popular public fairs throughout last year.

00:30:32We also needed to understand the clear role played by the international buyers that they

00:30:37interacted with, like this man, who was prominent at Spansel Hill, Cahermie in Butterfount and

00:30:43the Banneher horse fairs.

00:30:46Over the years, thousands of horses have left the Cash's Clougheen farm to buyers in Europe.

00:30:52And almost every week, their lorry travels to Europe with all types of horses, delivering

00:30:58to places like this frequent destination, nestled among factories in an industrial estate

00:31:04in Rotterdam.

00:31:06The key to our investigation was not the traders in Ireland, but the international buyers who

00:31:12were responsible afterwards.

00:31:14So we needed to follow a journey from mid-morning in Monastirevan.

00:31:19The lorry is loaded up and pulls out after 4pm, heading directly for Dublin Port.

00:31:27After midnight, it gets to Hollyhead, driving across the country, boarding at Dover, and

00:31:34then on to Calais.

00:31:36From here it continues through France and into Belgium.

00:31:41More than 27 hours after it left Kildare, it pulls into its only destination, a stable

00:31:48not far from Antwerp.

00:31:50There was more to this place than we realised.

00:31:58There's a farm just up here, it's a couple of hundred metres from the Dutch-Belgian border.

00:32:02We've been able to establish that it has dealt with thousands of horses.

00:32:06It's got connections right across Europe.

00:32:09Those connections were at the heart of an international criminal network that laundered horses.

00:32:15The owner of the farm was the man we had observed back at fairs in Ireland.

00:32:19He is Stin de Fisher, a significant horse trader in Europe, convicted of horse passport

00:32:25crimes in Belgium in 2014.

00:32:29Separately, he stood trial in France.

00:32:38The Marseilles trial laid bare an international horse smuggling ring.

00:32:43Last year, de Fisher and the man to his right were convicted as the ringleaders of that

00:32:47scam to target French abattoirs with forged passports.

00:32:52De Fisher was jailed and banned from all activity in the horse trade for five years.

00:32:57To our surprise, de Fisher's trial had a lot to say about Irish horses.

00:33:03Police investigated thousands of horses imported from Ireland through the Cash family.

00:33:09Then, after they reached de Fisher, a massive amount of these Irish horses disappeared without

00:33:15a trace, after quickly being given Dutch passports.

00:33:20But despite his conviction and ban, we found de Fisher was still playing a major role in

00:33:26the fate of our horses, taking regular deliveries of Irish animals and turning up at fairs in

00:33:32Spansel Hill, Bottevent and Banneher.

00:33:36Belgian authorities have told us a further judicial investigation is ongoing.

00:33:41They confirmed assistance has been sought from Irish authorities.

00:33:46The Marseilles trial had exposed how criminals laundered unsafe horses and got them into

00:33:51the food chain.

00:33:53But how was this even possible?

00:33:55Well, the lack of standardisation creates a lot of opportunities for someone to come

00:34:00in and, you know, get a fake passport or alter passports.

00:34:06You have a system based on trust and you have a lot of products moving across these open

00:34:10borders.

00:34:11You increase a lot of opportunities for fraud.

00:34:16It's a paper system for a lot of it.

00:34:19There's no up-to-date photographs.

00:34:21Ultimately, they're almost not worth the paper they're printed on.

00:34:26And in this day and age, you know, we should be having a proper digitised system.

00:34:32Netherlands is key to his business.

00:34:34And despite his ban from the French courts, de Fisher can be seen here dealing at major

00:34:39fairs last autumn.

00:34:41So in the Netherlands, we have horse markets and they're quite huge.

00:34:45And what you see is that they're, because of the lack of enforcement, nobody cares.

00:34:52And people can do whatever they want.

00:34:54My biggest concern is that the animal welfare is not important.

00:34:59So the most important thing is to make as much money as they can.

00:35:03They just care about the money and making as much money as possible.

00:35:08This affects Irish horses, which we discovered were being slaughtered in the Netherlands

00:35:12every week we checked.

00:35:14Dutch records suggested many had been in the country for quite a while beforehand.

00:35:19But when we cross-checked, we found some horses were still racing back home well after they

00:35:25were supposed to have been exported.

00:35:27The trade records did not add up.

00:35:31This led us to systemic failures in the European horse meat industry.

00:35:37All of the Irish horses that we found slaughtered in recent years in the Netherlands met their

00:35:42end here at Schlachthuis Hoegemans.

00:35:45And we can reveal this facility was the source of a European-wide food alert.

00:35:53The Europe-wide alert was sent because Dutch inspectors had stopped horses that turned

00:35:57up at this slaughterhouse on false passports and dodgy German identities.

00:36:03We got hold of the records from other Dutch horse meat alerts.

00:36:07We put them together and we cracked a clear pattern.

00:36:10The common thread?

00:36:12Almost all had false German identities.

00:36:14They were all slaughtered at this facility, which did not respond to our offer to comment

00:36:19on our findings.

00:36:21German identities were key for one important reason.

00:36:25Ireland, like other countries, offers an online microchip checker to see if a horse is safe

00:36:31to slaughter.

00:36:32Germany does not.

00:36:33We found evidence criminals were exploiting this.

00:36:36To show how easy it was to compromise the system, all we needed to do was go online

00:36:42shopping, order a box of microchips with the numbers that you want, and for just $22 get

00:36:48a brand new batch of German microchips delivered from a warehouse in China, preloaded, ready

00:36:55to insert, and a key hurdle overcome in the creation of a new identity for a horse.

00:37:02Later, German authorities explicitly told us we could not check the veracity of microchips

00:37:08on its database, even after we identified many suspicious records linked to fraudulent

00:37:13activity among horses slaughtered for food.

00:37:17If you have a situation, for instance, where a horse goes from one member state to another,

00:37:21the authorities that are checking the slaughter of the house in that other member state should

00:37:27be able to have easy access to the database of the first member state.

00:37:31And so their improvements have to be made without any doubt.

00:37:35It seems to be very, very easy to cheat.

00:37:39Whenever we come across a scandal like this, and I really do think this is very, very scandalous,

00:37:46one of the consequences is consumers start to lose trust.

00:37:50When you get some bad actors like this, it just denigrates the whole industry, the whole

00:37:56food industry.

00:37:58We don't know where these fraudulent products have ended up.

00:38:02We don't know if it's in a restaurant, in the supermarkets, in a local market maybe.

00:38:08We don't know if a brand has used this unfit meat.

00:38:12We don't know.

00:38:13And this opacity is really problematic.

00:38:15Unfortunately, even with the best rules, you cannot stop fraudulent behavior.

00:38:20You cannot stop necessarily all kinds of crime.

00:38:22So it is there, but we need to make sure that we detect it quickly.

00:38:28What is very important, of course, is that we first examine very, very closely all the

00:38:33issues and the problems that have been identified.

00:38:35We're very grateful for the work that you have done.

00:38:38It's very important that we go and delve into the actual facts to see what went wrong where and how.

00:38:44We brought the results for investigation here to the European Commission.

00:38:48It oversees the safety of the food chain.

00:38:50Now it has launched an investigation and it has sought information from all relevant member states.

00:38:56But given what's at stake, it's too soon to know whether there will be any meaningful

00:39:00change either for consumers or for the horses.

00:39:09Still to come, we capture remarkable footage from inside an Irish slaughterhouse of what

00:39:14our experts say are horses' identities being changed before entering the human food chain.

00:39:20Following our data led us to find how our once-loved horses were abandoned, how they

00:39:30are smuggled, and how they could become lucrative currency for international criminal gangs.

00:39:36But none of this prepared us for what we uncovered back home in Ireland.

00:39:43Since 2020, the last remaining equine slaughterhouse in the country is located here at Straffan

00:39:49County, Kildare, in the heart of Ireland's equine industry.

00:39:53Shannonside Foods Ltd. is operated by John Joe Fitzpatrick, a Clare-based businessman

00:39:59with a colourful public profile.

00:40:02Publicly, Mr Fitzpatrick cares about horses.

00:40:06As chairman of Horse Care Ireland, he even got the ear of the Oireachtas Agriculture Committee.

00:40:12I run a horse habitat for animal slaughter.

00:40:16So we did do a cull.

00:40:18We did do destruction culling for the local authorities.

00:40:23At Shannonside Foods in Straffan, his business has a steady trade.

00:40:27It is the last equine slaughterhouse operating on the island.

00:40:31You might often see Mr Fitzpatrick and his son Aaron taking out classified adverts looking

00:40:37to buy more horses.

00:40:38We kill between 70 and 90 horses a week here.

00:40:44We work two days.

00:40:45Sometimes we work the 20th filling adverts.

00:40:48The slaughterhouse does not have an unblemished record.

00:40:51In 2011, the department suspended slaughtering activity at Shannonside Foods after a series

00:40:58of regulatory notices were issued for meat contaminated with faecal matter and horses

00:41:03being slaughtered on incorrect passports.

00:41:06The department said last year it served six non-compliance notices on the facility, but

00:41:11all were resolved.

00:41:15In 2021, immediately after undercover footage by BBC's Panorama and Animal Aid put an English

00:41:22horse abattoir in the spotlight, Department of Agriculture officials appeared before

00:41:26the Oireachtas to assure members there was nothing to worry about in Straffan, the country's

00:41:32only operating equine slaughterhouse.

00:41:35I'm happy to say that we were very satisfied with the way things operate in the slaughter

00:41:42plant.

00:41:43They're regulated in pretty much the same way as a beef slaughter plant or a sheep slaughter

00:41:48plant or whatever.

00:41:49We have a full-time official Department of Agriculture vet present at all times when

00:41:53slaughters take place.

00:41:55Away from the plant, Mr Fitzpatrick has had his own issues.

00:42:00In 2011, this grey gelding was discovered struggling for breath in a field outside Gort.

00:42:10When vets came, it and another horse had to be put down.

00:42:15John Joe Fitzpatrick was later convicted of cruelty to both animals and fined €2,000.

00:42:22Then there is the site itself.

00:42:26Behind the wall of the lairage and land where the company's horses are allowed roam, sit

00:42:31a high mound of waste.

00:42:33That was hard to see from the road, but throughout last summer its smell drifted a distance.

00:42:40Charges under the Waste Management Act were struck out against Mr Fitzpatrick and Shannonside

00:42:45Foods last month after the site was cleared.

00:42:49In separate incidents, these horses were discovered in a dead or injured state behind the gates

00:42:55of Shannonside Foods last year.

00:42:58Shannonside Foods told us it was aware of the cases, but that those horses were not

00:43:03positioned on the company's property, and the horses received veterinary care from Kildare

00:43:09County Council.

00:43:11We were concerned at the condition of horses that we observed at the facility, sometimes

00:43:16lame or frail.

00:43:19There are laws to protect animals destined for slaughter.

00:43:24The law is very clear when they're presented for slaughter that they should be free from

00:43:28injury, they should be free from avoidable fear, they should not be inflicted with any

00:43:34avoidable pain.

00:43:36All animals have a need, a right to a good life, but also a good death, and that should

00:43:43be a death that's free of fear, and fear of pain and distress.

00:43:47So yes they're going to be shot, yes they're going to die, but they don't need, they're

00:43:50not aware of that.

00:43:53It required closer inspection.

00:43:56Slaughtering in Straffan takes place on Wednesdays, when a typical day would see up to 65 horses

00:44:02killed.

00:44:03Firstly, we observed from distance, to understand how horses might be treated as they were dropped

00:44:09off at the facility.

00:44:12On kill day, department officials supervise this kill room and small adjoining holding

00:44:17areas.

00:44:19But they do not have jurisdiction over a larger lairage to the rear that officially is not

00:44:24part of the licensed premises.

00:44:27This holding shed is where the animals are kept in the build-up to slaughter.

00:44:31Many horses are kept here.

00:44:34We saw some in clear distress.

00:44:37This one squeezes under the gate and is left struggling to stand.

00:44:47And another is pushed out dead.

00:44:52Horses are effectively prey animals, they're fight or flight animals, so they will react

00:44:59adversely to trauma, to stress, to fear.

00:45:04The evidence of these horses demanded that we look inside the lairage, where we secretly

00:45:09filmed for the days building up to and preparing for just one kill day.

00:45:15The law says facilities should be built and organised with floors that minimise slipping,

00:45:21falling or injury.

00:45:24With passageways designed to allow animals move freely in the required direction, using

00:45:29their natural behavioural characteristics.

00:45:32And all animals should be spared any avoidable pain, distress or suffering.

00:45:38To enforce the law, every abattoir must appoint an animal welfare officer.

00:45:43Shannonside Foods has told us it has appointed two.

00:45:47John Joe Fitzpatrick and his son Aaron Fitzpatrick, who plays a significant role in the running

00:45:55of the business.

00:46:05Inside the lairage, we witnessed sometimes frantic scenes of horses being scattered,

00:46:13whipped

00:46:22or falling in a heap.

00:46:34In one case, two horses are forced into the crush, one falling and its leg becoming trapped.

00:46:44We asked forensic veterinary expert David Martin to review the footage.

00:46:51They're moving them in a very aggressive, fear-based manner and that's just inappropriate.

00:46:58Everything is being done in a rush and fast and being done with fear for the horses, which

00:47:05is resulting in them slipping and skidding on the floor.

00:47:10The lairage is where many horses, bred for glittering careers, spend their last few days,

00:47:16processed with barely a backward glance.

00:47:23This horse appeared to be in distress from first light, struggling to rise, giving up

00:47:35and lying for hours as staff worked around him, kicking him, before he was eventually

00:47:42destroyed with a bullet to the head.

00:47:48We don't know how it's got to that passageway, but it's clear that this horse is in a very,

00:47:52very severe state.

00:47:53It's completely unable to even sit up.

00:47:55It's lying flat out and this horse should have been shot immediately.

00:48:00Earlier that same day, across the passageway, a heavily pregnant mare from the same pen

00:48:05dropped to the floor.

00:48:07The foal was dead on arrival.

00:48:16It was left for seven hours before it was dragged out.

00:48:21It's illegal to transport a mare close to foaling.

00:48:24They certainly shouldn't be foaling in the lairage.

00:48:27She was never fit to be transported and she should never have been brought in.

00:48:30It's just totally, totally inappropriate.

00:48:32Completely inappropriate.

00:48:33The previous day, this horse struggled for hours.

00:48:44Before it fell, tried to get up, many times, the only attention it got was the illegal

00:48:55use of a pitchfork.

00:49:13After hours of struggling, it died.

00:49:18It was dragged out the next day.

00:49:21Some of the lairage staff comes to the horse and he tries to get the horse up using what

00:49:25appears to be a pitchfork, which is completely inappropriate.

00:49:29You're not going to use something that's sharp and painful as a painful stimulus to see if

00:49:33the horse can stand up.

00:49:36The animals that are being taken in should be fit, healthy animals that are ready to

00:49:42be slaughtered for food.

00:49:46You would not expect to see animals dying, certainly not in the number that we're seeing.

00:49:51When animals are taken for slaughter, they have to be treated properly.

00:49:56They have to be treated with respect.

00:49:57They have to be well looked after.

00:49:59If there's any sign, for instance, of lameness in an animal, I mean, they would automatically

00:50:04not be taken for slaughter.

00:50:06It seems to me those horses were suffering for a very long period of time.

00:50:11The law says that in slaughterhouses, staff cannot strike or kick slaughter animals.

00:50:17They should not apply pressure in a way likely to cause avoidable pain or suffering.

00:50:23Staff should not use more than a light slap with a flat of the hand and the minimum of

00:50:27contact to herd the horses.

00:50:30They cannot do anything that might cause unnecessary fright, like pinning this frantic horse with

00:50:37a gate.

00:50:39On the eve of kill day, horses are brought to the crush to be scanned for microchips

00:50:44and identified.

00:50:47The treatment was nothing like they would have been used to.

00:50:51Take this seasoned racer, Diodoro, seen here winning in the colours of the Crown Prince

00:50:56of Dubai.

00:50:58He was sold on more than once and eventually landed here, to be whipped a few times with

00:51:04a pipe, smacked with a gate by the welfare officer Aaron Fitzpatrick, and then checked

00:51:13in ahead of his slaughter the next day.

00:51:17Other horses had less pedigree but got similar treatment, routinely struck with an alkythene

00:51:22pipe.

00:51:33This all happens within the space of a couple of hours.

00:51:58This is not how you handle horses.

00:52:02It really concerns me, the amount of force that's been exerted to a round horse's heads

00:52:05in particular, because those are really sensitive.

00:52:12And some of the force that's used in some of these video clips is really extreme.

00:52:16There's one where a gentleman is lifting the pipe right back over his head and then bringing

00:52:22it down with incredible force.

00:52:24And we've got to remember these pipes are very long, so the amount of force they're

00:52:26going to be exerting at the end of that pipe, with a five foot, six foot long piece of pipe,

00:52:32is going to be really extreme.

00:52:33And that's going to cause these horses serious pain.

00:52:37There's no reason why horses should be subjected to the sort of cruelty that they're being

00:52:41subjected to.

00:52:49In May 2021, this horse was born with the pedigree and promise to make a competitive

00:52:55sport horse.

00:52:58Less than three years later, he resisted going to slaughter.

00:53:08There's absolutely no justification for it.

00:53:09I mean, this horse, this chestnut, that's refusing to go into the crush, is turning

00:53:14around and approaching them and they're hitting it around the head with alkaline pipe.

00:53:17It's completely inappropriate, completely, completely illegal, and clearly is causing

00:53:22these animals to suffer.

00:53:26I've visited larriages and slaughterhouses for probably about 45 years.

00:53:31I have never seen anything like this.

00:53:44This is, you know, like nothing I have ever seen, ever experienced before.

00:53:49I mean, it's just, it is unbelievably distressing.

00:53:54This contravenes all regulations about how animals should be treated in terms of animal

00:53:59welfare.

00:54:02It's just unimaginable, you know, the pain and suffering that these animals are going

00:54:05through.

00:54:06I mean, it's just, it is a scandal.

00:54:09Under Irish law, it's very clear that they shouldn't have any unnecessary suffering.

00:54:14So they should not have physical striking, there shouldn't be any physical interactions

00:54:18that are not necessary and can be avoided.

00:54:24We observed one of the firm's animal welfare officers, Aaron Fitzpatrick, playing a key

00:54:29role in verifying the identities of horses prior to slaughter.

00:54:35The checks he is doing are supposed to ensure only horses that are safe to eat end up in

00:54:41the human food chain.

00:54:43When checking one horse, we saw Mr Fitzpatrick load something into his hand and do this.

00:54:52He's first of all checking, is there a microchip?

00:54:54And then he's, and we see him holding a blue book in his left hand, that is an equine passport.

00:54:59He appears to be inserting a microchip into that horse.

00:55:01You can see as he pulls out and takes his arm out of the crush, you see something held

00:55:06in that hand, a white something, that's a microchip implant, I'm certain that's a microchip

00:55:10implant.

00:55:11There's nothing else it could possibly be that would look like that and that would be

00:55:15being administered to a horse in this sort of situation, particularly where someone who's

00:55:19also holding an equine passport in their other hand.

00:55:22We asked could he have been doing something else, especially as we saw him repeat the

00:55:26procedure for a second time on another horse.

00:55:29So it's exactly where you'd always put a microchip.

00:55:32It's not the sort of place you'd stick a treatment and you wouldn't be administering a medication

00:55:37to an animal that's about to go into a slaughterhouse, about to be killed.

00:55:41In this moment, on paper, the real horse vanishes and a new identity is created to ready it

00:55:48for slaughter.

00:55:49Only a practising vet can insert a microchip.

00:55:52When they're inserting the microchip, they can only use a microchip that is supplied

00:55:57by the passport issuing organisation.

00:56:00This is clearly where animals are being rechipped and this is about hiding, disguising, changing

00:56:07their identity and the fact that they are being rechipped with another identity means

00:56:14that really where these horses end up, if somebody wants to check the chip, it certainly

00:56:19will not come back to the slaughterhouse.

00:56:22Tampering or foraging of documents is taken very seriously.

00:56:26That can result in a fine of up to €100,000 on conviction on indictment.

00:56:31It can also result in a prison period of up to two years or indeed both.

00:56:35So tampering or foraging of documents is illegal.

00:56:39The microchip is not the only protection food consumers have to make sure unsafe horses

00:56:44do not get into the food chain.

00:56:48Department vets are on site to check the identity markings that are officially stamped and recorded

00:56:54in the passport of each animal.

00:56:57If you've got a passport, as well as having a microchip number, it will have a description

00:57:01of that horse, a written description and a drawn description showing where any white

00:57:06markings on that horse are.

00:57:08So that would again be something that would be immediately noticeable to someone comparing

00:57:13the horse with its passport.

00:57:15However the department does not carry out pre-slaughter inspections in this part of

00:57:20the facility where Shannonside Food's staff screen and prepare the animals.

00:57:26Here we see this animal as it enters the crush.

00:57:30It clearly has two white socks on its front legs.

00:57:36Mr Fitzpatrick is then handed a can of spray paint, working on the legs of the horse.

00:57:57Minutes later the same animal crosses the camera again and the legs are all gone dark.

00:58:04So we see this horse going in with a white sock on its right front leg and then we see

00:58:09someone with a spray can working round the front of the horse and then subsequently when

00:58:15we see the horse later there is no longer a white sock there, all its legs are now the

00:58:18same colour, they're all brown.

00:58:20So the assumption here is that someone has matched that horse to the passport.

00:58:26In a statement the Department of Agriculture said it has staff on site and prior to slaughter

00:58:31identity checks are carried out to validate that the animal presented matches the passport

00:58:37presented for this animal.

00:58:41Later we see another horse sprayed and a colleague, fearful that the authorities would spot it,

00:58:47points out that Mr Fitzpatrick has missed a bit.

00:58:54The only purpose I can see for re-identifying these horses is to take horses that are not

00:58:59supposed to be going into the food chain and put them back into the food chain by giving

00:59:02them a new passport.

00:59:04Bringing a horse and re-identifying a horse, they're putting human safety at risk and they're

00:59:09compromising the food chain.

00:59:11How can this be going on with the authorities not understanding that there is this type

00:59:17of practice happening here?

00:59:18I personally do not understand it.

00:59:21When the slaughterhouses decide to cheat, it has consequences on the consumers at the

00:59:28very end of the food chain.

00:59:30It's not only a hidden problem behind closed doors.

00:59:37In Europe we have the most stringent food system in the world, something we should all

00:59:45be very proud of.

00:59:47And yet here we're seeing a blatant breaking of rules and regulations around that food

00:59:54system.

00:59:55It's really not operating, it's not functioning as it was designed to be.

01:00:01The department said its staff did not detect any welfare issues on the dates this footage

01:00:06relates to, but it said the lairage where secret filming took place was not part of

01:00:11the approved premises.

01:00:13It said all evidence of illegal activity will be appropriately investigated.

01:00:18Shannonside Foods said it is in compliance with its licence and the operations conducted

01:00:24by the company are in accordance with the laws.

01:00:27It said any allegation of an equine being mistreated will be fully investigated by the

01:00:32company.

01:00:34Others identified in this footage did not respond.

01:00:37In recent weeks department investigators and the Gardaí have carried out searches at premises

01:00:43linked to Shannonside Foods.

01:00:45The department said investigations are ongoing.

01:00:49The horses that survived the lairage were ultimately led across the yard to the kill

01:00:54room.

01:00:55In Ireland this is the room where thousands of horses have ended up in recent years, and

01:01:01where each week dozens more meet their end.

Horses Making a Killing - full documentary

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