Two farmers in Australia will be jailed for their role in a scheme to illegally smuggle Danish pig semen in shampoo bottles in an attempt to create a “super sow”.
Torben Soerensen, 39, and Henning Laue, 74, face three and two years respectively after pleading guilty to breaching the country’s strict quarantine laws.
Both men worked for Danish-owned GD Pork and ran the secret scheme from its Pinjarra piggery for eight years, 9News reports.
Soerensen, the company’s sole director, acted as a frontman, placing orders and artificially inseminating the pigs and breeding manager Laue played an advisory role in the scheme.
The semen was then smuggled into Australia in passenger luggage belonging to Danish nationals and major shareholders in GD Pork.
Federal agriculture minister Bridget McKenzie, said: “This case shows a disturbing disregard for the laws that protect the livelihoods of Australia’s 2,700 pork producers, and the quality of the pork that millions of Australians enjoy each year
“GD Pork imported the semen illegally in an attempt to get an unfair advantage over its competitors, through new genetics.”
GD Pork has been fined $500,000 (£281,000) but is currently in administration, ABC reports.
Australia has strict rules about the importing of pig genetics from Europe following numerous cases of African swine fever which can prove fatal.
In China, the disease has led to the culling of millions of livestock.
But Danish pigs are more fertile than Australian pigs so using their semen is an alluring prospect to breeders.