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"Waste Mafia": prison firm and heavy fines required

2021-11-24T18:29:20.702Z


Prison sentences were required Wednesday, November 24 in Draguignan (Var) at the trial of the "waste mafia", as well as heavy fines ...


Prison sentences were required Wednesday, November 24 in Draguignan (Var) at the trial of the "

waste mafia

", as well as heavy fines and the confiscation of sums intended for the rehabilitation of twenty irremediably polluted land.

Natural sites in the Var and the Alpes-Maritimes, sometimes classified, are definitively "

disfigured and have lost their environmental stake

", while they are part "

of an ecosystem that we are trying to protect

", denounced the substitute for the prosecutor Mathilde Gauvain.

Read alsoToxic waste in Wittelsheim, the urgent need for a solution

In a case "

emblematic by the means implemented

", According to a lawyer of the civil parties, with hours of telephone tapping and overflights by helicopter to detect deliveries by truck, five years of imprisonment including three years suspended, the heaviest requisition, were demanded from the 'against a 34-year-old man with an already extensive criminal record, tried in particular for death threats, abandonment of waste and laundering. Against two other defendants, a four-year prison sentence with a three-year suspension was requested. Finally, two years' imprisonment including six months suspended sentence were required against a man tried in particular for extortion with violence and abandonment of waste. Conditional sentences ranging from four months to three years have been requested against the other six defendants.

The public prosecutor, who asked for management bans, also demanded fines of up to 500,000 euros, both against these ten defendants and against the seven companies prosecuted.

Finally, confiscations of large sums, up to 500,000 euros and intended for the rehabilitation of land, were required.

The total amount of the rehabilitation of the 22 polluted sites is estimated between five and six million euros.

"In the construction industry, we solve problems with gunshots"

The seventeen defendants are being prosecuted for abandonment and irregular management of waste in an organized group, under the environmental code. But also, on the penal level, for fraud by an organized gang, threats of death, felony or misdemeanor, or even extortion by violence, among others. In total, 22 sites in the Var and the Alpes-Maritimes received so-called “

inert

soil

mixed with bitumen or plastic, or even mercury or lead.

The method of this “

waste mafia

” was simple: to offer free land delivery via classifieds on Le Bon Coin or Facebook.

But, instead of two or three trucks, some sites turning into “

unpacking

” saw hundreds of heavy goods vehicles pouring waste from the Nice airport construction sites or the future Pôle Emploi site in Cannes La Bocca.

Companies responded to calls for tenders to remove this rubble from construction sites by offering extremely competitive prices.

Then they dumped their load on wild sites, thus exempting themselves from waste treatment costs.

Read alsoPlastic waste: Citeo urges the French to "continue to sort" their household trash

Two owners who had protested were threatened with death. “

You don't know our background. In the construction industry, we solve problems with gunshots

, ”one of the defendants had launched to the owner of a site on which more than 100 trucks had come on certain days. "

These are ways of talking between us,

" he had justified Tuesday. "

It is a language a bit of the street

", added his brother, also warned, for whom "

the diggers use a particular language

".

For Steve Herce, lawyer for the Paca branch of the National Union of Quarry and Construction Materials Industries (Unicem), civil party, "

we must denounce these practices made of threats, intimidation on owners, pressure on elected officials or even the gendarmes, who were offered to close their eyes and give them money to ensure their retirement

”.

The defendants “

defend themselves by saying 'We didn't kill anyone”.

But yes, they have killed the environment a little

, ”insisted the lawyer.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2021-11-24

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