MOSCOW, August 7 (RIA Novosti) - About 300 kg of counterfeit black caviar worth more than 1.5 million euros has been confiscated in Moscow, a Russian Interior Ministry's official said Tuesday.
A total of 268 kg of beluga caviar was seized from a number of the city's supermarkets, Yevgeny Shkolov, head of the ministry's department for economic security, said.
He said the caviar had an unusual smell and was contaminated by E. Coli, an intestinal bug.
A criminal case has been launched. Police are trying to detect where the delicacy came from.
The sturgeon population in the Caspian Sea has dwindled almost forty-fold in the last 15 years because of overfishing and poaching. The poachers harvest the fish for their expensive black caviar.
