POPs IN AFRICA HAZARDOUS WASTE TRADE 1980 - 2000 ... - Arte

The methods of the organisation are highly sophisticated; the
financial part is strictly separated from the operational part, where
large profits are accumulated as a result of illegalities in waste
management activities. These profits are recycled into perfectly
legal activities by Swiss, Italian and British financial companies
and trusts, and by numerous offshore companies located in places
like Panama, Guernsey, BVI, Liechtenstein, and Ireland.
The organisation is not a static structure. Its various businesses
are constantly being restructured in a search to maximise profits,
both legally and illegally. It works on an international scale, and
can therefore influence politicians and public administrations.
Several members of the network have a remarkable record of
environmental and criminal law violations.. The corporate
conduct of the network is characterised by fraud, bid-rigging,
forgery, and corruption in order to gain illegitimate political
influence. Some elements are allegedly linked to covert
freemasonry lodges, and to Cosa Nostra.
Greenpeace has reconstructed, insofar as possible, a map of
companies through which the principal representatives of the
network serve their ends. Between 1991 and 1996 the network
has attempted to dispose of waste in Brazil, El Salvador,
Mexico, Paraguay, and Venezuela. The network’s operative
branch in Italy includes at least 26 companies handling an
estimated 3000 tonnes of waste per day, with a total value of
about USD 4.8 million. Reports are commonplace of hazardous
waste being declassified and illegally dumped and of shipping
papers and waste registers being forged. Sometimes waste
simply disappears while moving from one place to another.
Given its monopolistic control of waste management in the area,
the organisation has free access to the harbour of La Spezia
(Italy), one of the busiest container terminals in the
Mediterranean.
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