China: Crime groups spread rumors or use UAVs to spread African swine fever virus, then buy it cheaply and then sell it for profit.

According to an investigation by China Comment, a magazine affiliated with the state news agency Xinhua, several criminal gangs have spread rumors of the African swine fever virus to spread confusion among farmers. . They even put dead pigs on the roadside to make them believe that the epidemic was spreading.

These guys even use drones (UAVs) to drop infected items on pig farms, placing infected food in pigsties.

"One of our branches discovered a UAV dropping a foreign object into a pigpen, then checking and detecting an African swine cholera virus in those samples," said the owner of a farm.

The purpose of these gangs is to spread disease, forcing farmers to sell pigs at low prices to buy and then sell them as clean pigs at high prices. They often smuggle live pigs or pork to other areas for sale, despite the ban on the transport of pork between provinces to prevent the spread of the disease.

In this way, these guys can earn up to 1,000 yuan (143 USD) per pig, so they are actively speculating on pigs in large numbers. "How many pigs do we have," one trader said.

African pig cholera has reduced more than 40% of pigs across China, pushing pork prices doubled and facilitated speculative crime.

In Yunnan province, authorities confiscated 10,000 pigs, some of them infected with the African swine flu virus, on their way to other provinces. Police believe that there is a gang smuggling up to 4,000 pigs from the province in just one day.

The price of pork in China increased from 20 yuan (2.86 USD) to 52.3 yuan (7.49 USD) per kg last month. From now until the Lunar New Year holiday at the end of January, demand for pork in China is expected to skyrocket and pork prices could rise to around 65-75 yuan (9.3-10.7 USD) a. kg.