Tokyo Metropolitan Government officials on Wednesday impounded about 3.5 tons of imported beef repackaged as domestic and stored at Snow Brand Food Co.'s warehouse in Tokyo's Ota Ward.

The 352 cases of beef have been placed under the control of Tokyo officials for further examination, the metropolitan government said.

In addition, officials searched the warehouse and Snow Brand Food's headquarters in Tokyo's Chuo Ward in an ongoing fraud investigation.

The metropolitan government is considering filing a lawsuit against the company under the Food Sanitation Law.

The inspections were conducted after the company on Tuesday revealed that it has been repackaging is stock of foreign beef as domestic to claim government compensation under a state-run buyback scheme.

The company has said that its Kanto Meat Center in Saitama Prefecture has repackaged 3.5 tons of beef and that its sales and procurement department at its headquarters in Tokyo has done likewise with 12.6 tons.

It also said it has found about 3.5 tons of the repackaged beef stored at the Ota Ward warehouse.

The revelation followed last week's disclosure that the company's employees at the Kansai Meat Center in Itami, Hyogo Prefecture, repackaged 13.8 tons of Australian beef to claim subsidies.

The metropolitan government had searched the Ota Oward warehouse last Thursday and ordered it not to move about 86 tons of meat stored there.

With the recent impoundment, the metropolitan government now plans to sue the company for making a false report, as the company had claimed last week that only its Kansai Meat Center was involved in mislabeling beef.

Separately in Hakodate, Hokkaido, Takashi Udo, the president of a Snow Brand Food-affiliated meat-processing company, denied any involvement in the false labeling.

His workers had no knowledge they were involved in mislabeling when they were reprocessing and packaging 12.6 tons of beef blocks sent by Snow Brand Food's meat sales and procurement department in early November, Udo said.

Meanwhile, in Hyogo Prefecture, Tetsuaki Sugawara, head of Snow Brand Food's Kansai Meat Center, told police he thought the false-labeling practice was unlikely to be discovered because similar practices have gone unnoticed.

Considering Tuesday's fresh revelation and Sugawara's statement, Hyogo prefectural police suspect the practice may be common and is investigating whether senior officials of Snow Brand Food have knowledge of any mislabeling trend.

Snow Brand Food is a subsidiary of Snow Brand Milk Products Co., which is still struggling to recover from slumping business after a food-poisoning scandal in July 2000.