Detained for burying 46,000 tons of waste from France in Sant Esteve Sesrovires

BarcelonaWhat began with an inspection of a waste management plant that was dumping construction materials from Barcelona has ended up uncovering a network that illegally moved tens of thousands of tons of waste from France to Catalonia. An operation involving the Civil Guard, Europol, and the French Gendarmerie has resulted in the arrest of four people who allegedly formed part of an organization dedicated to environmental fraud and illegal waste trafficking. The investigation has established that at least 46,000 tons of waste from France were brought into Catalonia and clandestinely buried in agricultural land, mainly in Sant Esteve Sesrovires (Baix Llobregat). The City Council has already announced that it will request to be involved as a private prosecution.

The Civil Guard made this operation, which investigators have named Franger, public this Monday. The four arrestees are two men and two women, aged between 39 and 60, and the investigation results attribute to them crimes against natural resources and the environment, document forgery, crimes against public finances, fraud, money laundering, and belonging to a criminal organization.

The investigation began in 2022 with inspections of a waste management plant that was dumping materials from contaminated areas of large construction projects in Barcelona onto agricultural land. Subsequently, the entry of waste from operators located in France was detected. Among the dumped waste were hazardous materials such as hydrocarbons and heavy metals. Therefore, a technical report will now have to assess the environmental risk generated by the dumping.

As the police force explained in a statement this Monday, the waste was dumped irregularly and without taking mandatory safety measures, thus endangering the environment and people. Another part of the waste was sent to four inert waste landfills, and to three other non-hazardous waste landfills, where materials, plastics, wood, and packaging were mixed with soil.

They imported "product" or "soils"

The criminal organization used false documentation to bring municipal and industrial waste from France into Spain under designations such as "product" or "earth". With these false documents, they evaded controls linked to the international transfer of waste and also avoided paying taxes to the Spanish treasury. Furthermore, they saved the disposal costs and the fee required in France, where the environmental taxation applicable to this type of waste is higher.

Once in the State, they buried them without any safety measures to protect the environment. The Catalan Waste Agency and the Sant Esteve Sesrovires City Council have been informed of the investigation. The Civil Guard is now working with the council to study possible control and decontamination measures for the affected areas.

The City Council noticed "irregular actions"

For its part, the Sant Esteve Sesrovires City Council has explained that it detected "irregular actions" related to authorized earthmoving and "unauthorized" earth dumping on another plot of land. The council added that it opened the corresponding files on the license holders and property owners and informed both the Prosecutor's Office and the Martorell courts of a presumed urban planning and environmental crime.

The City Council states that when the files were opened, it was unaware of the waste dumping. On the other hand, the plenary session approved opening a sanctioning file "for dumping of earth and felling of trees", with a proposed fine of 814,900 euros. It was not until the joint inspection with the Civil Guard this June that the council became aware of the "possible existence of an environmental crime related to illegal waste dumping", they point out in a statement.

From that moment on, in addition to presenting itself as a private prosecution in the judicial proceedings against the alleged perpetrator of the dumping, the City Council has also requested from the tenant of the land "the obligation to restore it to its previous state". In parallel, the council has hired a specialized company to assess the damages.