Alleged cruelty to animals: raid on meat dealer

The police searched several locations of a meat dealer in North Rhine-Westphalia. Video recordings show employees severely mistreating animals. Animal rights activists speak of a system failure in the trade in sick animals.

Because of the allegation of animal cruelty, the police carried out raids on Thursday at several locations in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). One of them took place in a so-called collection point for animals in Werne in the Unna district. On video recordings, which were leaked to the animal welfare organization “Soko Tierschutz”, can be seen how an employee of this company beats a cattle until it collapses. Apparently the animal cannot walk. Then it is dragged onto a hanger with a rope on the leg using a winch.

“What he is doing is looking for brutality and cold bloodedness and contempt for these dairy cows of his peers,” says the head of Soko Tierschutz, Friedrich Mülln. He is very happy that the police acted accordingly.

Head of the animal welfare department appalled

Cattle and horses in particular end up at the animal collection point in Werne before they are taken to a nearby slaughterhouse. Many are obviously not transportable, many are apparently ill. That ARD magazine FAKT has submitted the recordings to the responsible animal welfare department in the Ministry of North Rhine-Westphalia. “That is unbelievable. It cannot be surpassed in brutality,” says department head Sylvia Heesen.

From Heesen’s point of view, the pictures make it clear that the animals are treated with extreme rawness. “Quite apart from the fact that it is illegal to even try to load animals that are unfit for transport.” The specialist veterinarian for animal welfare does not want to anticipate the investigation, but from her personal assessment “there is clear criminal action here”.

The collection point in Werne belongs to a local family business that also runs a butcher’s shop, a slaughterhouse and a company for animal feed: the Mecke GmbH. The manager is for FACT Cannot be met in person and cannot be reached by phone. A law firm replied in writing on Tuesday that the FACT slaughterhouse shown only produce animal feed. Food would be produced in the butcher’s shop. At all locations, the company attaches great importance to “respectful and responsible treatment of animals”.

Ministry prohibits contact with animals

The authorities already imposed the first sanctions against the company on Friday: The employees who could be identified via the videos have received a general ban on handling animals with immediate effect. The operation of the collection point will be suspended until the investigation is complete. “This means that from now on animals will no longer be collected via this collection point and, above all, no more animals will be dispatched,” said the Ministry for the Environment, Agriculture, Nature and Consumer Protection of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.

One of the other raids took place at the Hunecke cattle dealer in Westerkappeln in the Tecklenburger Land. This company is said to have delivered animals that could not be transported to the slaughterhouse in Werne. Hunecke was already involved in a major scandal involving sick animals in Bad Iburg (Lower Saxony) in 2018, reports Soko boss Mülln.

On recordings from that time you can see “a cattle trailer from Hunecke who pulled the animals out with the winch almost on a daily basis,” says Mülln. “Kicked out of the vans, beaten, maltreated with electric shocks. That is exactly the company that is now taking action at the Mecke slaughterhouse in Werne.” The head of the company was for FACT unable to reach for comment.

Greens: “massive problem”

There is a system behind this cruelty to animals, says the agricultural policy spokesman for the Greens in the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia, Norwich Rüße. According to him, the problem begins with farmers who do not have their sick animals treated because it costs money. Instead, they sold to cattle dealers who in turn did their business with the slaughterhouse. It is a system to make money from broken cattle.

“Everyone knows that the animals go to the slaughterhouse even though they have no business there,” says Rüße. The animals are so emaciated that they first have to be fed up again. “We have a massive problem in the dairy cattle sector. In principle, this is the last stage of a messed up, completely wrong system.”