COMBATTING WASTE CRIME

According to Interpol, environmental crime is a serious and growing international problem which includes both pollution-based crime and wildlife crime leading to serious, adverse effects on the planet, biodiversity and human life.

Key Features of Environmental Crime

Wildlife crimes very often have transnational character. Namely, ‘transnational crimes’ are defined as ‘crimes whose inception, prevention or effect involve more than one country’ and they have ‘multinational nature and cross border impact’. According to the 2000 UN Convention on Transnational Organized Crime (‘Palermo Convention’) an offence is of transnational nature if:

1. ‘It is committed in more than one State;
2. It is committed in one State but a substantial part of its preparation, planning, direction or control takes place in another State;
3. It is committed in one State but involves an organized criminal group that engages in criminal activities in more than one State; or
4. It is committed in one State but has substantial effects in another State’

There are many forms of transnational environmental crimes, such as the movement across borders of species, trafficking of illegally-logged timber, smuggling of endangered, threatened and protected species, transboundary dumping of toxic and hazardous waste including electronic waste.

Very often, but not always, there are strong links between transnational environmental crime and organised crime. The EU Agenda on Security (2015) specifically highlighted the link between environmental crime and organised crime. Despite the rather disputed definition of this notion, the analysis shows that the ‘organised crime’ can involve many types of crime (fraud, embezzlement, money laundering, racketeering, extortion, human trafficking, drug trafficking, etc.) and many types of actors who on their own do not constitute a criminal organisation, but do so in interaction. Hence, organised crime is often defined as complex criminal organisations that aim to control illegal markets – and even branch out to legal markers - and attain control by means of violence and/or corruption. In this type of crime, different actors are involved, such as private companies, public officials, politicians and criminal networks.

In addition to this, environmental crime is interconnected with other types of crime including corruption, tax evasion and money laundering which - due to its ‘high profit-low risk’ nature - is highly attractive for Organised Crime Groups (OCGs).