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A Chinese restaurant in southwest Moscow is being investigated on suspicion of rounding up dogs on the street, killing them and passing their cooked meat off to customers as lamb, city police said Monday.

Two residents went to police after seeing suspicious activity near the restaurant, located at 88 Prospekt Vernadskogo, near the Yugo-Zapadnaya metro station, police spokeswoman Irina Volk said.

"They reported seeing a truck pull up to the restaurant and restaurant employees unloading bags in which something was moving and whining," Volk said.

After the tip-off, undercover police officers went and posed as clients, ordering a number of dishes from the restaurant, which is located in a dormitory near Moscow State Pedagogical University and caters primarily to Chinese and Vietnamese clientele, as well as local students, Volk said.
"Tests showed that the meat being sold as lamb was actually dog meat," Volk said.

Most of the dogs were strays, and many were sick, but several of the dogs likely had owners and had merely gotten lost, she said.