Portuguese authorities have announced that they have seized 87 tons of processed beef products that were contaminated with horsemeat.
The country's Food Safety Agency said in a statement that it has withdrawn nearly 19,000 pre-packed beef products such as lasagnas, hamburgers and meatballs, over horsemeat contamination.
The Portuguese health and safety police (ASAE) has also opened criminal cases against five local companies after the laboratory evaluation of 134 samples revealed that 13 of them contained horsemeat.
Meanwhile, Russian officials have found traces of horsemeat in a shipment of pork sausages imported from Austria. According to Russia's agricultural watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor, laboratory analysis on a shipment of Frankfurter sausages observed the presence of horse DNA, along with chicken, cattle and soya.
Recently, supermarkets across Britain, France and Sweden removed a number of packages containing beef lasagna, spaghetti, burgers as well as various other products from shelves immediately after tests identified that some products contained nearly 100% horsemeat.
The Europe's widening horsemeat scandal erupted in January 2013, when horsemeat was detected in frozen meals and burgers in the UK and Ireland.
