Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 02/05/2010 5:11:31 PM PST by hadit2here
The international carbon market has been hit by a phishing attack which saw an estimated 250,000 permits worth over 3 million euros stolen this week.
The scam involves six German companies and meant emissions trading registries in a number of EU countries shut down temporarily on 2 February.
In the global carbon market, companies can buy permits from other firms, allowing them to emit greenhouse gases.
The criminals are believed to have created fake emissions registries.
They then sent e-mails to thousands of firms around the globe, including New Zealand, Norway and Australia.
"It was a world-wide action," Hans-Juergen Nantke, head of German emissions registry DEHSt told the Reuters news agency.
Seven out of 2,000 German firms targeted are known to have fallen victim to the scam, handing over registration details which allowed the thieves to steal their emissions permits.
"Of the seven, six have been subject to theft," said Mr Nantke.
The registry has submitted details of the attack to state prosecutors in Berlin.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Carbon credits just reminds me of tulip bulb mania. Only tulips actually have some miniscule real-world value. Watching people pay good money for an illusion is just baffling.
I especially liked one of the last items in the story:
“The United Nations’ Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said it was working closely with national registries to ensure their systems were secure.”
Yeah, like THAT’s gonna make sure everything is safe and secure. Riiiiigghht.
If we can’t always trust the UN, who CAN we trust? /sarc
People who didn’t buy into the scam in the first place didn’t get ripped off.
ROTFL!!! Gotta love those wacky “carbon credits”!
Gullible morons who buy Carbon Credits from scammers, get scammed by other scammers...
Sounds kinda poetic to me!
Ain’t KARMA a bitch?
The real criminals are the ones who created the real emissions registries.
LOL yep.
I read the Harper’s Weekly article on the EU carbon credits game. Total Alice-in-Wonderland with a whole new set of alphabet-soup, UN-declared governing bodies and certification agencies with all manner of opportunities for fraud.
The author is a greenie and even he sounded skeptical.
Here’s hoping this incident simply collapses the value of this imaginary Monopoly money.
Really heating up the warmers, eh?
Normally would not be in favor of criminal enterprises, but this is like a rival gang stealing from Capone.
Keep on hackin’
So the scammers got scammed. OH NO!
LOL!.....so IOW they got bupkis!
Now that’s a great Phishing Trip - lol
A lot of businesses in Europe didn’t have a choice but to buy in. It was headed that way here. No carbon credits? Government regulators fine you and/or shut you down.
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