Posted on 06/20/2012 2:19:52 AM PDT by Olog-hai
The EU special envoy for Somalia is looking into a fresh report that pirates are in business with Italian gangsters on toxic waste.
The Paris-based criminologist, Michel Koutouzis, who carries out investigations for the UN and for EU institutions, described the problem in a new book—Crime, Trafficking and Networks—published in May.
He said organized crime groups in south Italy—the Camorra, 'Ndranghetta and La Sacra Corona Unita—supply Somalian warlords with black market small arms from the Western Balkans in return for permission to dump waste.
"Tonnes of waste are discharged every year off the coasts of Somalia, Sudan and Eritrea under the noses of countless warships which control sea freight in the Read Sea and the Gulf of Aden," he explained.
He noted that part of the income—worth "hundreds of millions of euros a year"—is laundered via the tourist industry in Kenya and Tanzania.
He added the practice has been going on for years: a UN report in 2005 said the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami broke up deposits of lead, cadmium and mercury as well as hospital and chemical waste, which washed up on the shore near the coastal towns of Hobbio and Benadir, killing some 300 people.
Speaking to press in Brussels on Tuesday (19 June), the EU's special envoy for the Horn of Africa, Alexander Rondos, a former Greek diplomat, said the book has come to his attention.
"It has been passed on to people who are better equipped than I am to look into it ... people are checking into it," he said.
"We need to find out who is funding them [Somalian privateers]. They are part of a much bigger problem we face in the Indian Ocean—the globalization of organized crime. Investigations are under way." …
(Excerpt) Read more at euobserver.com ...
But we’re does the Mafia get the toxic waste in the first place? You can’t tell me the corrupt EU governments didn’t know that they hired Mafia controlled companies to haul away their trash..
They’re always looking for fall guys so they can look legit.
“British rear admiral Duncan L. Potts, who commands the EU’s anti-piracy mission, Atalanta, said..(snip)...the troops under his command have not killed a single pirate in their three and half years of operations”
...if he's working out of France for the UN...IT MUST ALL BE TRUE. They will eventually find Joey Boombots out of Hoboken,NJ and his two 70's pickups, guilty of soiling the waters of the world, and demand instant YEARLY penalty payments to the UN until they deem it safe and under control
““British rear admiral Duncan L. Potts, who commands the EU’s anti-piracy mission, Atalanta, said..(snip)...the troops under his command have not killed a single pirate in their three and half years of operations””
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I guess marching in formation does not work too well in the Indian Ocean. :)
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