Page 223 - Supplemento 2-2016 (ENG)

Tackling Environmental Crime throUgh standardized Methodologies

duction to transportation to disposal; hiding or spreading dangerous waste in
farming land; using them in the production cycle for concrete; burning waste
in open air; illegally stacking huge amount of waste in non- certified areas and
so on. The most important modus operandi used by these organizations con-
sists in the false certification released to de-classify the dangerous nature of the
material to be disposed.

The Italian legislation offers an important tool against environmental
crime: art. 260 of Environmental Law – Legislative Decree n. 152 dated April
the 3rd, 2006 about organized illegal waste trafficking. This offence can be defi-
ned as a company crime, since it is built around the concept of profit not just
for individuals but businesses aimed at maximizing profits through a complex
and diversified array of illegal activities, often comprising corruption of public
officials.

As an example of interaction between legal and illegal businesses, in this
framework, the Carabinieri Environment Protection Unit of the Southern city
of Caserta, starting from monitoring a company specialized in waste transpor-
tation, in 2015 conducted an investigation against Camorra groups controlling
the works for natural gas distribution in local towns, arresting 6 people.

In Milan, as a result of another complex investigation, the local
Environmental Unit arrested other 6 people responsible for waste trafficking
of hazardous waste coming from a drain site, illegally classified with a different
code in order to be stocked by trusted companies and then sent to be eventually
disposed in Germany.

Furthermore, important investigations and analysis carried out by the
Carabinieri Special Operations Group, known as ROS, and territorial units sho-
wed that in the last years organized crime groups have increased their involve-
ment also in the business and agri-food sector, low-profile areas but among the
most profitable ones in this current crisis.

Those groups try to control the entire agri - food production chain, from
the cultivation to transport, from funding, to gross distribution, to local retail,
including the use of agricultural land for illegal waste disposal. Those organi-
zations initially originated in the South of Italy and are now spreading also in
other areas across the national territory.

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