A businessman has been found guilty of fraud after trying to pass off horsemeat as beef through his north London-based food company.

Andronicos Sideras was convicted yesterday, July 26, at Inner London Crown Court by a jury of five men and seven women – who took over ten hours to reach a verdict.

The 55-year-old previously accepted that his business – Dinos & Sons – received shipments of horsemeat. However, he denied allegations these were deliberately relabelled as 100% beef, claiming he was only holding the product on behalf of someone else.

Sideras alleged that a shipment of horsemeat was accidently relabelled as beef because the packaging had been damaged during transit, with the fraud estimated at a value of almost €224,000.

The scandal was first uncovered in Northern Ireland after a random health inspection by Newry and Mourne District Council identified horse ID chips in a number of meat pallets received by the Freeza Meat store in Newry, which straddles counties Down and Antrim.

The Prosecutor, Jonathan Polnay, explained that the company made a profit because, at the time, beef sold for about €3/kg, compared to €2/kg for horsemeat.

The conviction comes after the owner of Flexi Foods – which was reportedly storing its meat products at Sideras’ premises – admitted to involvement in the horsemeat scandal.

Meanwhile, the Spanish Guardia Civil recently dismantled an organized crime group for trading horsemeat in Europe that was unfit for human consumption.

The probe was carried out in partnership with Europol, with 65 people arrested in Spain and charged with crimes including: animal abuse; document forgery; crimes against public health; and money laundering.

It was 2013 when the saga first came to light after Irish authorities detected traces of horsemeat in beef-labelled products.