Organized Crime exploits environmental protection efforts with blatant disregard for both the environment and human lives. It is neither new nor surprising that Organized Crime takes advantage of many of the world’s most significant and challenging problems, including armed conflict, human trafficking, water shortages, cybercrime, and even the Covid pandemic. Recently, environmental protection efforts have resulted in waste disposal becoming a profitable and heavily regulated industry, one that is increasingly attractive to illicit groups. As the regulatory framework expands and becomes more sophisticated, illict cost-saving solutions provide lucrative opportunities.
Garbage disposal has been part of Organized Crime’s ever-expanding portfolio since at least the mid 20th century. The racket involves everything from ordinary household garbage to hazardous waste, and allegedly even nuclear waste. Much of the illicit dumping and burning of waste occurs in parts of the world with limited detection and enforcement regimes. Naples in Italy presents a horrifying example of both the practices and the impact of illegal waste management. The Italian mafia’s multibillion-dollar toxic waste disposal operations gave domestic industries a solution for a fraction of legal disposal costs. The subsequent unlawful dumping and burning sites have been found responsible for excessive instances of tumours, chiefly brain tumours, in children during their first year of life.
Strengthened international actions for the protection of the environment create irresistible opportunities for Organized Crime. While facilitating the operations of Organized Crime was surely unintentional, it should not have been unforeseeable. Organized Crime already makes most of its profits from manipulating or boycotting the rules of regulated markets. Their sophisticated operations for human and drug trafficking fulfil people’s needs and desires for illicit commodities and services. The environmental protection regulations are but one more example of how policymakers seek simple solutions to complex problems and thus fail to identify and account for unintended – and often highly undesirable – consequences.
EUROPOL has warned that profits from environmental crimes can equal that of drug trafficking and how this high profit attracts Organized Crime. In 2015 the United Nations estimated that 60-90% of the world’s e-waste, valued at some USD 12-19 billion, is traded or dumped illegally, often with Organized Crime involvement. Additionally, environmental crimes are often harder to detect and carry lower penalties. The most vulnerable areas and populations in the world are particularly exploited, taking advantage of weak governance, poverty and political or economic turmoil to both decrease risk and maximize profits.
Organized Crime is well equipped for environmental crime, as it is facilitated by violence, forgery, corruption and hacking of government regulatory systems for the purposes of acquiring fraudulent permissions or avoiding detection. Organized Crime manipulate the market by sabotaging the competition and use corruption to prevent improvements in waste management. Tax evasion and money laundering are utilized to maximize illicit profits.
Plastic waste is the latest addition to the regulated waste market, regulated under the Basel Convention since January 2021. The “Plastic Amendment” allows export only where the waste will be processed in an environmentally sound manner and where the importing country consents to the importation. The plastic waste market is astronomical, with only an estimated 9% of plastic adequately recycled since 1950 because processing is too costly for recycled plastic to compete with virgin plastic.
International law enforcement organizations have identified twofold opportunities for generating illicit profits from regulated waste management: illegal waste treatment domestically or illegal waste trafficking across borders. Ensuring compliance of rules for trafficking across borders is hampered by low technical capacity, lack of resources and poor information sharing. Domestic opportunities are mainly unlawful dumping, illegal incineration and illegal recycling. Ensuring domestic compliance is hampered by compartmentalized regulatory oversight, technical capacity, lack of information sharing, and emphasis on the issue. An improved understanding of the legal waste management market is essential to identify illicit operators’ opportunities and inform better enforcement actions.
The international regulation largely fails to address the problem of ensuring compliance, leaving it to domestic authorities to address deficiencies. Relying solely on domestic authorities and their jurisdictionally limited reach is both inadequate and unacceptable when the illicit waste market is transnational.
Successful environmental protection needs a holistic approach that addresses what affects the effective implementation and brings unintended consequences. Exploitation by Organized Crime decreases the effectiveness of expanded environmental protection. Moreover, Organized Crime creates further harm when exploiting our society and infrastructure with violence and corruption, preying on the most vulnerable areas and their citizens. Maximizing profit is always the ultimate goal of Organized Crime, and they have proven their capabilities and complete disregard for the environment and human lives. Consequently, understanding the illicit opportunities created in the lucrative waste management market must guide the regulatory scheme’s design to build adequate barriers against Organized Crime. Otherwise, the already entrenched role of Organized Crime in waste management, and particularly hazardous waste management, threatens future environmental disasters with grave human impact.
