Four people were arrested yesterday (13 November) after the Environment Agency (EA) raided 10 premises in the Midlands as part on an operation to ‘crack down’ on illegal waste crime.

Operation Argument was launched following ‘detailed intelligence work, surveillance, and information gathered from members of the public and police’ and saw four individuals arrested in connection with large-scale illegal dumping of baled waste (pictured above) at sites across the West Midlands.

Those arrested are now being interviewed in custody at Wednesfield Police Station by Environmental Crime Team Officers.

Operation Argument details

The raid brought together 45 officers from the EA, and 45 officers from West Midlands Police, West Mercia Police, and British Transport Police, who simultaneously raided 10 premises, both industrial and residential, across the West Midlands and West Mercia.

As well as arresting individuals involved in illegal waste activities, the EA and police also executed warrants and obtained evidence, such as computers, phones and documents for ‘further examination’.

In total, six illegal waste sites (mainly warehouses) of a suspected organised crime ring were found to have received over 2,000 bales of waste weighing 1.4 tonnes each. The EA estimated that removal costs for this waste could reach over £3 million, with much of this ‘borne by the landowner for each site’.

The EA has said it is working with ‘a number of partner agencies to piece together intelligence to focus enforcement on the key players’ and plans ‘further arrests’.

Operation Mosaic

In related news, a skip company based in Chichester, West Sussex, has been fined £15,000 and ordered to pay costs of £2,500 after pleading guilty to running the company ‘without any planning permission or environmental permits in place’.

Maxi Skips Limited, based at Polthooks Farm in Fishbourne, pleaded guilty to the offence at Worthing Magistrates’ Court yesterday (13 November), after ‘Operation Mosaic’, and investigation conducted by EA officers, the police, local authorities and environmental organisations, found that the company had been illegally trading for over eight years without any permits.

The court heard that in September 2012, EA officers visited the Maxi Skips site with planning officers from West Sussex County Council and saw staff sorting waste from skips that had been delivered to the farm.

The director of the business was told that operations had to cease ‘with immediate effect’ as the company was not permitted to operate a waste transfer station.

Despite the business complying with the cessation request, EA officers discovered that the company director was aware that he was ‘operating an illegal waste transfer station and skip business without planning permission or environmental permits in place’.

‘Zero tolerance approach against offenders’

Speaking of the prosecution, Simon Moore of the Environment Agency said: “It is very disappointing that Maxi Skips Ltd chose to operate a waste transfer station without any planning permission or permits and felt that profit was more important than operating legally.

“Operation Mosaic is an ongoing initiative and the net is closing in on people who think they can make easy money undercutting legitimate waste businesses by putting the local environment at risk. We are constantly gathering information on illegal waste sites, criminal activities and environmental crime in the Chichester district and across the Solent.

“Together with our partners, we are taking a zero tolerance approach against offenders. In cases like this where individuals consistently operate illegally, we have absolutely no hesitation in prosecuting them as we want to make sure that waste crime doesn’t pay.”

These cases form the latest part of the EA's crackdown on illegal waste sites, which reportedly saw the EA shut down a ‘record’ total of 1,279 sites between April 2012 and March 2013 alone. The EA’s illegal waste sites task force programme is expected to draw to a close at the end of the year.

Read more about the EA’s waste crime prevention activities or find out what the average day of an Investigation Officer entails in Resource 74.