Mafia Links to Toxic Waste Trade - Europe

["greenbase" <greenbas@gb.greenpeace.org>]

GREENPEACE REVEALS MAFIA-LINKED COMPANY'S PLANS TO
 ILLEGALLY DUMP TOXIC AND RADIOACTIVE WASTE ON EASTERN
EUROPEAN AND AFRICAN COUNTRIES

SWITZERLAND, 24 September 1997 --- Greenpeace activists seized
today the Swiss headquarters of Oceanic Disposal Management
(ODM) in Lugano, and published shocking evidence that this
company is forming a new partnership with the organized crime to
implement plans for the illegal (1) burial under the seabed of
radioactive and hazardous wastes. ODM financial backbone is in
Switzerland, while Italy is its main operational field.

At the ODM headquarters, Greenpeace activists unfurled banners
reading "Stop Waste Trade Mafia" in German, French and Italian.
"We discovered that ODM is only the most recent criminal
enterprise of a large waste-mafia network specialised in illegal
waste management activities" said Stefan Weber of Greenpeace.
This information is confirmed by several Italian public
prosecutors.

Greenpeace research reveals that the very same actors that a
decade ago tried to profit from making nuclear and hazardous
waste "disappear" in Eastern Europe, Africa, and Latin America,
are still in business. In May 1997  the Ukrainan State-owned
Black Sea Shipping Company had requested  Greenpeace's
assistance in checking ODM recent attempt to introduce
radioactive wastes into Ukraine. Greenpeace has discovered that
in January 1996 ODM signed an agreement with an Ukrainian
company to implement the illegal dumping of asbestos and
radioactive waste in the Black Sea.  According to the
documentation gathered by  the environmental organisation,  ODM
agreed to pay  its Ukrainian partners (the joint-stock venture
Prometey based in Borispol, Kiev) 50,000 USD for each  of the
first 10 asbestos waste containers to be buried under the seabed
using special penetrators. ODM would pay 2,000 USD for the
dumping of each subsequent penetrator.

"Since 1994 we have watched ODM `s increasing activities in
seeking for waste dumping schemes, as they targeted at least 16
African countries and were able to sign a letter of intent with
the military junta in Sierra Leone and to make an offer to South
Africa. Both schemes were actually dropped." said Weber.

The ODM network has an impressive record of poor environmental
management and criminal violations (2), but also maintains
business relationship with well organized large industrial
corporations and finance companies whose complex structures are
often used as a shelter for illegal activities. The Italian
network surrounding ODM includes at least 26 waste companies
handling 3,000 tonnes /day of waste valued about 4.8 million
dollars. Greenpeace research also revealed that representatives
of the ODM network in Italy were in business with Waste
Management Inc., Societe Generale des Eaux and Lyonnaise des
Eaux, three major waste management multinationals.

Greenpeace have been fighting for over a decade to prevent
industrial and nuclear waste being dumped at sea or exported to
developing countries. Today the amount of toxic and radioactive
waste generated by industrialised countries keeps increasing but
no safe disposal options exists. The only solution is to command
and prevent the generation of hazardous substances. "Governments 
ought to keep up with their commitments to reduce the mountains
of waste currently produced by the industry. The failure to
ensure this control will result in a growing amount of waste
following the criminal path, with unscrupulous business joining
organised crime in the next century business:  the waste trade
mafia" added Weber.

 NOTES

(1) The so-called sub-seabed disposal  of waste - as well as
other dumping activities - were banned in 1993 by the London
Convention, designed to prevent marine pollution caused by waste
dumping at sea. After years of negotiations with nuclear and
industrial lobbies, the Basel Convention bans the trade of waste
bound for final disposal and for recycling between the rich OECD
and the developing world by 1998.

(2) One of the network managers, Camillo Meoli, was arrested in
1995 on charges of environmental damage and criminal association 
for having delivered hundreds of tonnes of hazardous wastes to
a broker working for the Sicilian Cosa Nostra. The toxic waste
was subsequently illegally dumped into an abandoned quarry near
Turin, in Northern Italy. Meoli is currently being investigated
by Public prosecutors in Palermo on charges of suspect
affiliation to Cosa Nostra.

Public prosecutors are also investigating on charges of suspect
affiliation to Cosa Nostra Filippo Dollfus, a very well known
Swiss businessman and an ODM shareholder. Dollfuss (Finance
Management Company - Fiderservice SA -  in Lugano) is the
financial advisor to the ODM network.

Several companies part of the ODM scheme belong to Arcasio
Camponovo, another well known respected Swiss financier who was
financial advisor to ODM until December 1995. Camponovo still
provides ODM with his office space and  telephone numbers in
Lugano. ODM network's financial links also includes other major
names from the Swiss finance world such as Tito Tettamanti, Edo
Gobbi, Peter Steimle.

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http://www.greenpeace.org