!!! UPDATE: Read the Europol Press Release here !!!
– Estimated 5 billion euros in damage for European taxpayers
– Massive fraud involving criminal networks / Middle East
Hat tip Reader Dirk H.
Here’s more proof that trading of CO2 emission certificates is fraught with fraud and attracts seedy criminal organizations – all costing the consumers and taxpayers billions.
Worse yet, it has spread out of control and appears that the authorities can’t keep up.
The Austrian online Kleine Zeitung here reports that Europol have raided an elaborate CO2 emissions scam in Italy and have arrested more than 100 persons.
The Kleine Zeitung writes: “The damage runs in the billions of euros”.
According to Europol, the Italian tax authorities, directed by the Milan Prosecutor’s Office, have raided 150 companies in Italy. The fraud involves evasion of value added tax with CO2 emission certificates. More than 100 have been arrested and are suspected of being involved in organised crime.
The Kleiner Zeitung reports that the Italian Electric Utilities trading markets had earlier halted entire trading with emissions certificates “because a high number of abnormal transactions”. The loss in tax revenue just from VAT (MTIC (Missing Trader IntraCommunity Fraud) alone is estimated to be 500 million euros, the online Kleine Zeitung writes.
The fraud is widespread
According to reports, it’s been known since June of last year that criminal organizations have been using CO2-emissions trading for defrauding governments of value added tax.
This is not the first time that police raids of this scale have taken place. It’s the latest in a series of raids that have been carried out all over Europe this year, all involving the trading of CO2 emission certificates. It seems the authorities just can’t keep up with the multitudes of swindlers out there.
Norway, Switzerland and the EU countries Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Latvia, the Netherlands, Slovak Republic and Portugal are all among the countries trying to identify the network of criminals behind this massive fraud – a fraud with links to criminal networks operating outside the EU and in other continents, like the Middle East.
2500 investigators – trying to identify. That’s means they haven’t yet. That’s a lot of fraud. The fraud has spread from science to finance. Expect a meltdown – sooner than later.
UPDATE 2: Recall this Danish fraud: http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6790
From January 2010:
‘Carousel’ frauds plague European carbon trading markets
http://itsfaircomment-climategate.blogspot.com/2010/01/carousel-frauds-plague-european-carbon.html
It appears they still haven’t gotten a grip on the situation, and that it’s only getting worse!
This one too from Dec 5th 2010..
The $7-billion carbon scam
http://itsfaircomment-climategate.blogspot.com/2010/12/7-billion-carbon-scam.html
H/T Climate Realists
Thanks – just added to the story.
My antivir gives me several malware warnings when i go to your link, might be false alarms, though. Just FYI.
I’m having lots of fun scanning for EU related terms right now. Europol and their extradition Ermächtigungsgesetz is one of my favourites. Mix in a sluggish polish bureaucracy and you get this:
http://polskaweb.eu/polen-jagt-eierdiebe-ueber-interpol-5365764.html
http://www.freitag.de/politik/1049-drei-auslieferungen-pro-tag
So, they’re not only busy chasing thin air certificates but also polish egg thieves across the EU… (egg thief is a German figur of speech for a petty criminal) In one case they had to extradite a guy to Poland because of a bank overdraft years ago he already paid back, which is, according to the article, a criminal offense in Poland and MUST be persecuted…
If i have to live here i can just as well enjoy the descent into wholesale madness.
We just want to be more draconic than the Germans 😉
You do that very nicely. The Germans have gone all touchy-feely the last years. 😉
A report from the periphery; BBC’s Europe correspondent about bleak youth perspectives in Ireland, Italy, Spain. The shape of things to come.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/gavinhewitt/2010/12/a_bleak_year_in_europe.html
Practice makes perfect. The main thing is to have a good teacher 😉
I also have the feeling that something is breaking down in the EU.
[…] h/t to Marc Morano and Pierre Gosselin […]
[…] this headline — Europol Arrests More Than 100 In Carbon Trading Fraud — also leaves me […]
Have a look at the post from E.M.Smith
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/12/28/ignore-the-day-at-your-peril/
regards,
I will tell you the scheme in Slovakia during the previous commie government:
Since CO2 emissions in Slovakia were higher in 1990 than now (1990 = Kyoto reference period) because of shutting down inefficient heavy industry, we have got some free carbon credits to sell. Ministry of environment sold them for 5-6e/ton to garage company Interblue, established exactly for this purpose, and Interblue sold it for 10-12e/ton to Japan or somewhere. Net loss for state finance was two billion Slovak crowns (~70 mil euro).
A term to be used in this context is criminogeneous law, provoking crime in stead of preventing it. Compare iatrogeneous disease, a trouble caused by an incompetent physician.
[…] Europol Arrests More Than 100 In Carbon Trading Fraud […]
See also the second post about climate science parasites on http://theresilientearth.com/
Yo! I planted 1/4 of of the trees in Yellowstone National Park so I have 10 billion genuine carbon credits ready for a quick sale today. Just come on down to weenielink dot com slash 6f_y34 and git some!
I suppose that Michael Milken is now beginning to feel a bit … irrelevant?
[…] from intense pressure from industry. This will no doubt disappoint many in organized crime, read here […]