Company suspected of exporting waste from Finland using false info

Finnish Customs has completed an investigation of environmental offences where a company is suspected of having exported about 15 million kilograms of waste from Finland to Asia, said Customs in a press release on Thursday.

The waste deriving from electrical and electronic equipment was exported in 2020 without the required permits, and providing false information on the waste contained in the shipping containers to the authorities.

The company gained more than 1 750 000 euros in criminal proceeds.

The offences investigated in the case are aggravated impairment of the environment, smuggling and aggravated customs clearance offence. The case has been transferred to the Prosecution District of Western Finland for consideration of charges.

In late 2020, Finnish Customs received a request for investigation from the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) involving the contents of six shipping containers declared for export to Malaysia.

The preliminary investigation gave cause to suspect that the criminal activities had been more extensive than that.

The company is suspected of having provided Customs with false information on the contents of shipping containers they exported also on previous occasions.

The company itself had deemed that the waste fulfils the purity requirements for so-called green-listed waste shipments and had not obtained export permits for the consignments.

“The company had used an incorrect commodity code in the export declarations and had also provided additional export codes in the customs declaration indicating that the consignment was a shipment of green-listed waste. However, the preliminary investigation showed that the purity of the waste did not meet the requirements set for green-listed waste,” said Johanna Mickelsson from the Economic Crime Investigation Unit of Customs.

The company had provided intermediaries based in Hong Kong as the consignees in the export declarations, although the destination country was declared as Malaysia.

According to the Finnish Waste Act, the exporter must always be informed of the final destination of the waste.

“Exports of so-called unclassified waste always require a waste shipment permit. The export of such waste may also be prohibited, so the waste may have ended up being inappropriately processed in the receiving country. For example, plastic from electrical and electronic equipment may have contained restricted or prohibited chemical compounds,” said Mickelsson.

The requirements for waste exports were tightened in 2021. You are no longer allowed to export any other waste than green-listed waste to non-OECD countries.

“The company had continued exporting waste to Malaysia, but now the export consignments were declared to contain scrap iron, and the company no longer used the commodity codes referring to plastic. However, the company’s records showed that the export consignments still contained plastic waste from electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) as well as aluminium, and that the company had not obtained an export permit for this waste. By providing false information on the contents of the shipping containers to the authorities, the company tried to avoid the controls that apply to such waste shipments,” Mickelsson added.

As part of this criminal investigation, Customs has also looked into the company’s actions as regards a waste consignment returned to Finland from Poland in 2022.

The company is suspected of having acted in violation of the environmental permit, and it has provided the supervising authority with different and partly contradictory details on the waste received and handled at the facility. The company also lacked the records required under the environmental permit.