Organized crime groups are behind the growth of illegal landfills across Scotland and a multi-million-pound landfill tax-evasion scam, according to the Scotland Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa).Also at the OCCRP:
Rising landfill taxes have resulted in an increase in illegal waste dumping. Next year the tax will hit 80 euro per ton. The higher tax rate means that just one unlicensed landfill can take enough trash to avoid one million euro in taxes each month.
"Waste crime damages the environment. It undercuts – and takes business away – from legitimate companies,” Sepa chairman David Sigsworth told The Herald newspaper. “It leads to illegal landfilling and exports, and can also be linked to tax avoidance, intimidation, money laundering and drugs.”
The new taxes have increased waste-disposal costs for many businesses and have created a major opportunity for environmental crime....MORE
The Environmentally Friendly Mafia
HT: Atlantic Cities who went with the Mafia story but which we've been following for a while now, see:
Mafia link to Sicily wind farms probed
Police in Italy Seize Mafia-linked assets worth $1.9 billion "Mob was Going Green"
Italian mobsters buck downturn, may target bourse (stock market for you Americans)
Sixteen Mafia Owned Tax Judges Arrested in Campania, $1.3 Billion Assets Seized
So a Sicilian mafioso walks into HSBC…
Mafia crime is 7% of GDP in Italy, group reports
Why the Mafia Loves Garbage
Mafia link to Sicily wind farms probed
Alphaville Strays onto Our Turf: "Property rights and the economic origins of the Sicilian mafia"
Renewables: Police Confiscate €1.3 Billion ($1.7 Billion) From Italian 'God of Wind'
