How Africa News
Authorities in Spain announced the dismantlement of an organization that had shipped over 5,000 tons of hazardous electronic waste from the Canary Islands to several African countries.
Senegal, Nigeria, Mauritania, and Ghana are among the countries mentioned.
According to the Spanish Customs and Civil Guard, the “criminal organization that managed to send from the island of Gran Canaria to Africa more than 5,000 tons of hazardous waste of electronic devices over the last two years would have earned more than one and a half million euros” in profit.
The waste was primarily shipped by boat to Mauritania, Nigeria, Ghana, and Senegal.
“For alleged environmental offenses, forgery, and membership in a criminal organization,” 43 people were arrested.
The latter was “removing waste from the legal channel” with the help of a “supposed management company that falsified documents on the origin and management”.
This waste was then repackaged as secondhand goods and shipped to these African countries.
Scraps containing mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic, or phosphorus, on the other hand, must be turned over to authorized companies for decontamination.
