Two men were arrested following raids on several homes in the Netherlands and Belgium on Thursday morning in connection with the fipronil egg contamination scandal, public broadcaster NOS reports.

The men are directors of Chickfriend, the Dutch company that allegedly used a fipronil-contaminated delousing agent at poultry farms. The two are suspected of endangering public health.

Apart from the men’s homes, a storage facility in Bergen op Zoom was searched while another two locations were searched at the request of the Belgian food and health authorities.

Officials also seized cars, bank deposits and real estate, because, according to the NVWA-IOD’s press release ‘crime cannot be allowed to pay.’

Belgium

In Belgium 11 addresses were searched, including companies which had allegedly used fipronil. The raids, which included the home of a vet, are said to have produced ‘incriminating evidence,’ NOS writes.

The egg scandal started in Belgium which is the source of the fipronil found in Dutch eggs. It is thought to have come from Belgian firm Poultry-Vision which sold a product containing the chemical to Chickfriend in Barneveld to combat lice in chickens.

Fipronil is alllowed to be used in cats and dogs but not in animals which form part of the food chain, NOS writes.