Eleven defendants and seven building companies were judged for pouring thousands of tons of rubble into the wild. Justice has also pronounced heavy fines and an obligation to put polluted lands in state.
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Fines of up to 1 million euros and up to two years in prison for one of the “brains” of the “Mafia des Waste”: that’s what the Justice decided on Tuesday 14 December, at the end of the unprecedented trial, on Monday, November 22, before the Draguignan Court (Var). A week of hearing for an infringement of the large-scale environment, never-seen in this type of affair. At the bar, eleven defendants and seven building companies, public works and transport of the Var and the Alpes-Maritimes, of which one without real existence, were judged for abandonment and irregular management of strip waste organized on twenty and one sites of the hinterland.
Between 2017 and 2020, a great survey on the code name “burned land” had highlighted a vast system of illicit waste spills from work sites in the Var and the Alpes-Maritimes. Baptized “Mafia des Waste” by the Prosecution, the defendants won clearing markets, such as the Nice Airport site or Pôle emploi in Cannes, with highly competitive prices. Instead of bringing these rubble to the dump and paying their storage as the law wants, they dumped by hundreds of thousands of tons in nature. Today, some sites are irreparably soiled and disfigured by mingled bitumen and plastic waste, even mercury, arsenic or lead.
“A shot”
Their technique, long decrypted at the hearing, was simple: offer “free” shipments of vegetable earth to individuals who sought to land their land, enlarge their vineyards or make vegetable gardens, through classifieds on Leboncoin or Facebook. Instead of the two or three agreed trucks, the owners have seen their lands turn into real “unpublords”, seeing to scroll hundreds of heavyweights spilling the rubble from the sites of the region. To a polluted land owner who tried to protest, a defendant had explained: “You do not know our environment. In the construction, we set problems with rifle.”
The majority of the implications had to respond to the accusations of organized band scam, death threats or violent extortions. The “brain”, a 34-year-old man at the criminal record already provided, was sentenced to four years imprisonment, including two suspended. Four others were sentenced to prison sentences included between twenty-four months and thirty months. The defendants, as well as the seven companies, will also have to pay heavy fines: the company Esterel Environnement, in particular, must record 1 million euros within one year, in respect of the rehabilitation of the land it has polluted. A total of 3.28 million euros will be recorded on the 6 million estimated for a rehabilitation of land. The Tribunal also granted damage to several civilian associations, including France Nature Environnement, as well as some of the injured owners.
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