A total of £70,96.26 was secured via two confiscation orders by the Food Standard Agency’s (FSA) food crime unit and Southwark Council, for placing food on the market that was not fit for human consumption.
A Proceeds of Crime Act confiscation hearing took place at the Central Criminal Court earlier this month, where Anthony Fear and Fears Animal Products Limited were each issued with a separate confiscation order of £35,483.63.
Anthony Fear, sole director of Fear Animal Products Limited was sentenced to 42 months in prison last August 2025 for conspiracy to defraud by placing food not fit for human consumption on the market. He was also disqualified from acting as a company director for six years.
Fears Animal Products Limited is due to be sentenced in the coming months.
What is confiscation order?
A confiscation order is a legal tool under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA).
“It allows the courts to recover money or property that has been gained through criminal activity,” explains legal expert and director of Tenet Compliance & Litigation, Arun Chauhan.
“In practice, once someone is convicted of a crime, the court can assess how much money or value they gained from their wrongdoing. The confiscation order then requires them to pay back that amount. This could include cash, goods, or other assets acquired through illegal activity.
“In this case, the £70,000 represents the value linked to illegal meat fraud, effectively money that the offenders gained through breaking the law."
‘A key strategy against food fraud’
Chauhan continues: “It’s important to note that confiscation is not a fine. Unlike a fine, which is imposed as a punishment, a confiscation order is aimed at removing the financial benefit of the crime. For the public, it’s a reassurance that the authorities can recover ill-gotten gains and use them to support enforcement or public services.”
This outcome follows a lengthy investigation by Southwark Council which began when officers discovered 1.9 tonnes of Category 3 animal by-products which were being processed for sale into the human food chain at an illegal meat cutting plant in London. This included whole and cut chickens, lamb’s testicles and beef burgers.
Andrew Quinn, head of the FSA’s NFCU, adds: “Securing confiscation orders under the Proceeds of Crime Act is a key part of our strategy against serious food fraud. We do this to ensure nobody profits from their crimes and to send a clear deterrent message to anyone thinking of following the same path.
“Not only do food criminals such as Anthony Fear face custodial sentences, they will also be stripped of any profits made from their criminality.
“Our financial investigators are experts in establishing those profits and identifying realisable assets, no matter the lengths some criminals go to in order to conceal them.”
