Police have arrested three men on suspicion of offences under the Fraud Act as part of their investigation into the mis-selling of horsemeat as beef as the first fresh beef products were withdrawn from a supermarket.
Dyfed-Powys police said three men were being detained at Aberystwyth police station following arrests at abattoirs in Wales and Yorkshire.
Meanwhile Asda announced that tests on a fresh bolognese sauce suggested the presence of horse DNA. The supermarket said it had also withdrawn three other products from the same supplier as a precaution.
The arrests follow the revelation that horsemeat containing the painkiller bute had probably been consumed by humans for some time. Catherine Brown, the head of the Food Standards Agency, said authorities in Britain and France are trying to trace the contaminated carcasses of six horses which were slaughtered in a UK abattoir and exported to France. A further two were identified and destroyed at High Peak Meat Exports Ltd in Nantwich, Cheshire.
Two of the men were arrested at Farmbox Meats Ltd near Aberystwyth and a third was arrested at the Peter Boddy Licensed Slaughterhouse in West Yorkshire. Dyfed-Powys police said the first two men were aged 64 years and 42 years and the third was aged 63.
The Food Standards Agency suspended operations at both sites after raids at the premises on Tuesday on suspicion the plants sold horsemeat for use in burgers and kebabs.
Brown said the agency increased testing of horse carcasses last year after intelligence from abattoirs suggested bute was getting into the food chain.
Chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies said although bute or phenylbutazone was linked to side effects in patients who have been taking it as a medicine for arthritis, the risk was very low.
"If you ate 100% horse burgers of 250g, you would have to eat, in one day, more than 500 or 600 to get to a human dose," she said. "It would really be difficult to get up to a human dose."