MAF probe seizes Fonterra documents

Ministry of Agriculture investigators probing the Powdergate illegal exporting scandal have used search warrants to seize documents from Fonterra sites.

MAF officials have refused to identify the targets but the Herald understands they were properties of the mega dairy co-op that inherited the embarrassing $50 million saga from its merger partners, Kiwi Dairies and New Zealand Dairy Group.

Documents obtained under the American Freedom of Information Act from the United States Food and Drug Administration also shed more light on the complex export trade.

The FDA detained 139 tonnes of the product over six months for being misbranded.

The documents raise questions over whether the exporter, Kiwi Dairies' New South Wales subsidiary Cottee Dairy Products, correctly valued the potentially high-priced product and whether its country-of-origin labelling breached American law.