Page 185 - Supplemento 2-2016 (ENG)

Tackling Environmental Crime throUgh standardized Methodologies

Fighting organized crime groups active on environmental crime

Wil Van Gemert
Deputy Director of Europol and Head of the Operations Department

In addition to thanking the Carabinieri and Corpo Forestale dello Stato
for this prestigious event, I would like to acknowledge the important work that
the TECUM project is doing in rising knowledge and putting up a level of stan-
dardisation of investigations, as there are still a lot of possibilities to promote
standards and come to a higher level of professionalism.

Representing Europol, I would like to acknowledge once again the trusted
relations we have with the Carabinieri: we have been cooperating quite closely over
many years on different projects and it’s a real pleasure to be here with you today.

I would like to start with the wrong assumption that environmental crime
is victimless. It is completely wrong and I will provide a few examples of this.

Firstly, environmental pollution is connected to climate change. Secondly,
the disruption of the economic balances between the different markets and the
creation of black markets that will disrupt the normal markets we are used to
and which we should protect. Thirdly, the extinction of certain species and the
endangered biodiversity that we should also protect. Another form of environ-
mental crime is connected to public health: we risk poisoning our citizens as
well as reducing life expectancy. The security of our food chain is also impacted
by the way that environmental crime has been transformed. Finally, environ-
mental crime also impacts on our reputation, the EU’s reputation as being
responsible for our environment and also taking up this responsibility by com-
mitting crime.

It has to be said that environmental crime, particularly waste trafficking, is
an underreported crime in most EU member states. In fact, many identified
cases are prosecuted simply because they also imply other criminal offences,
like fraud or forgery of documents, but that doesn’t reflect the real background
of crime as it is and, this way, in the official statistics environmental crime doe-
sn’t come forward.

It should also be said that Italy has been one of the first EU member sta-

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