Milk imported from Malta has become the centre of a large-scale food fraud scandal in Italy, where authorities discovered that over three million litres of pasteurised milk were mislabelled and sold as Italian, in some cases even marked as Sicilian.The investigation, led by Italy’s Guardia di Finanza in Ragusa together with the Icqrf (the Ministry of Agriculture’s anti-fraud task force), found that the milk had been shipped from Malta before being falsely registered as raw Italian milk and sent to unsuspecting dairies across Sicily and beyond.Investigators say the fraud was deliberate and calculated. Documents accompanying the shipments were altered to hide the true origin of the milk and remove any trace of its prior pasteurisation, replacing it with a false label declaring the milk “raw” and of Italian origin.As a result, numerous Italian dairies used the Maltese milk in good faith to create cheeses and other dairy products, believing they were working with local or Sicilian raw ingredients. These products were then labelled and sold as Italian-made, breaching food origin laws and misleading thousands of consumers.Authorities say the deception not only undermines consumer trust and damages the Italian dairy industry, but also raises health and regulatory concerns due to the misrepresentation of the milk’s treatment.The case highlights how the powerful pull of the “Made in Italy” label is often exploited in the agri-food industry, and in this case, to the tune of millions of litres of foreign milk repackaged to pass as premium Sicilian dairy.Those responsible are now facing charges of commercial fraud and falsification of official certifications, though investigations are still underway to determine how widely the tampered products were distributed.It’s not yet clear whether any of the milk or dairy products made with it have reached supermarket shelves or local markets, but the discovery has reignited calls for tighter controls on food origin labelling across the EU.Should Malta respond to the misuse of its products abroad?•