A GANG of conmen from Northern Ireland is offering farmers in the Republic a substance which the men claim will induce BSE in cattle for sums of over £5,000, it has been learned.
Some farmers in financial difficulty seek diseased animals to claim the very generous BSE compensation paid by the State.
The Department of Agriculture said it was aware of the fraud and warned farmers that anyone "stupid and treacherous enough to buy it will not only be conned, but caught".
"The scientific evidence available to us indicates that BSE which is induced has a totally different configuration than naturally occurring disease. At any rate, it takes a minimum of 18 months for the disease to incubate," a spokesman said.
The gang was active at the National Ploughing Championships in Carlow the week before last, offering what the conmen claimed were diseased brains from BSE infected cows in the North for injection into the brains of healthy animals.
One farmer, who was approached by one of the group, said the man had claimed the upsurge in recent cases of the disease was in part due to their operations in the Republic.
The farmer, who asked not to be named, said he had refused the offer, but the man who had approached him said he did not mind because "we have plenty of customers".
He said the conman was well dressed, middle aged and spoke with a slight Northern accent and was accompanied by two other men whom he described as "heavies". One of them produced a small plastic container which contained a thick grey liquid.
The asking price, the man told him, was £5,000 per container and there could be no haggling over the price. Others were paying the going rate.
When he questioned the authenticity of the substance, he was told it had been "made up by specialists" and that BSE was being injected into animals in laboratories all over the world by scientists studying the disease.
The State has already paid out £16 million to compensate at market value the 150 farmers in whose herds the disease has been found. Over 25,000 animals have been slaughtered and destroyed under the scheme to reassure the public and overseas buyers of the quality of Irish beef.
Recently, the Minister said he would be reviewing the generous compensation being paid.
There has been an upsurge in the number of cases of the disease in the Republic this year. Cases have more than doubled, from 16 in 1995 to 35 so far in 1996.
The Department also confirmed yesterday that on Friday it referred one case of the disease on a north Munster farm to the Garda authorities to investigate the source of the diseased animal.