Italy’s food fraud police seize about 1,000 hams sold in Italian market, saying the meat was branded with fake Parma prosciutto trademarks.

Real Parma prosciutto enjoy the protection of a “Denominazione d’origine prottetata” (DOP) within the European Union and are marked with a stamp bearing the image of a crown. Such protection is similar to that enjoyed by the sparkling wine of France’s Champagne region or the Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, also made in Parma.

But the prosciutto inspectors who seized the fake hams in supermarkets, smaller stores and warehouses throughout Italy over the past few months claimed that the trademark five-point on the hams wasn’t the real thing.

According to Fabrizio Raimondi, of the Parma-based organization that safeguards the use of the trademark, the following conditions must be met to earn the mark: the prosciuttos must have come from pigs of a certain weight, have the right amount of fat, and be aged in rooms where air quality and sunlight are controlled.

In police statements made recently, authorities confirmed that the seized hams were not legally branded with the crown trademark. And according to Umberto Santone, Carabinieri commander of the anti-fraud unit in Padua which was involved in the seizure, the fake prosciuttos showed evidence that such procedures weren’t respected so the hams did not have the same quality, aroma and sweetness. So although they may not be dangerous to eat, they would certainly be detected as fakes by prosciutto connoisseurs.

The seizures were part of a crackdown conducted by the Consorzio del Prosciutto di Parma over a period of two months. So why the big deal over fake hams? Why the involvement of the Carabinieri? The presence of fake prosciuttos being sold in the markets not only misleads customers as to the quality of the product; more critical, it seems, is that it damages the closely controlled reputation of Parma prosciutto. And the consequences for fake Parma vendors and makers reflect this: they all risk criminal convictions for commercial fraud, fines for infringing on the Parma trademark and damaging the image of the Consorzio, and maybe even imprisonment. The police are currently investigating two companies in northern Italy and an artisan who was asked to forge the trademark brand.

While it’s believed that customers have already bought and ate some of the fake prosciutto, future ham counterfeiters better beware if the recent crackdown is any indication of law enforcement’s serious intentions.