Page 167 - Supplemento 2-2016 (ENG)

Tackling Environmental Crime throUgh standardized Methodologies

Crimes against the environment: ecomafia or corporate crimes

Franco Roberti
Antimafia and Counter-Terrorism National Prosecutor

Good morning everybody, thank you, thank you very much.
Thanks to the Commanding General and to the Commander of the
Scuola Ufficiali Carabinieri who invited me to take part in this round table
discussion. My contribution will reflect the experience made within my Office:
the “Direzione Nazionale Antimafia e Antiterrorismo (The National Anti-
mafia and Anti-terrorism Directorate). I am going to discuss about the role my
Institution had in the past, what we continue to do and what, increasingly, we
aim to do in order to give a boost to the investigations in the environmental
sector.
I am delighted to be a member of this panel, together with representatives
of UNODC, EUROJUST and EUROPOL, because, although symbolically, the
fact of being here together proves the necessity, the need felt by all of us, to
constantly interact with international agencies and tackle a phenomenon, as the
environmental criminality, which has become more and more transnational .
As a result, we all are engaged on the frontline - united, as I said - in the fight
against waste trafficking and, in general, against environmental criminality.
The role of the Direzione Nazionale Antimafia e Antiterrorismo started
after the 2010 Reform with which the offence of organised illegal trafficking
of waste was introduced and provided for by article 260 of the Testo Unico
Ambientale (Consolidate Laws on the Environment). This crime was within the
jurisdiction of the District Prosecutor and stated - or perhaps I should say-
allowed the Direzione Nazionale Antimafia e Antiterrorismo - back then
known only as Antimafia- to set their own specific coordination activity and
encourage environmental investigations.
Initially this referred only to the offences committed by criminal organi-
sations/associations but included, by means of information and management
of such information, all those crimes - back then considered just violation but
today actual crimes - related to environmental criminality.

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