Police on the southern island province of Hainan have intercepted their largest ever haul of smuggled frozen meat.

The 660 tonnes of beef, ox tripe, chicken and chicken feet from Brazil, Argentina, Poland and Australia filled 18 shipping containers and is worth more than 21.5 million yuan (3.4 million U.S. dollars), the border police of Danzhou City said on Monday.

They became suspicious when an obsolete ship loaded with containers was found berthed on Sept. 27 at the Baimajing fishing port, normally out of bounds for container ship mooring.

The police raided the ship and found 34,499 pieces of smuggled meat. All the containers lacked licenses from quarantine and customs authorities, they said.

One suspect has been detained for questioning.

China's food safety watchdog called for local authorities to be on the lookout for smuggled frozen meat in July after a large amount of such produce, some of which had been frozen five years, was seized by customs.

Around 800 tonnes of frozen meat worth about 10 million yuan was seized in Hunan Province in June. Twenty people were detained.

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