Now a recent finding may show that an Italian criminal group has been dumping toxic and radioactive waste in the Mediterranean Sea for more than 20 years, making the problem not just a problem for Italy, but a problem for all the countries that share the seafront and the sea’s bounties.
Investigators, backed by the testimony of an informant, say that a notorious Calabrian organized crime group sank a ship carrying toxic waste in the Mediterranean. They also say it could be one of more than 40 such ships sunk by the group off the coasts of southern Italy.
Investigators last weekend filmed the 360-foot ship using a remote-controlled submersible; the images showed that at least one barrel had fallen off the ship and lay empty on the sea floor. The vessel is under 500 yards of water some 18 miles off the coast of the southwestern Italian region of Calabria.
‘Ndrangheta Boss Confession
The ship’s position jibes with testimony given three years ago by a former boss of the Calabrian mob, the ‘Ndrangheta. Francesco Fonti confessed to an Italian court that he had used explosives from Holland to sink three waste-loaded ships in the area in 1992. One of those ships, he said, was carrying nuclear waste from Norway. Another, which was carrying more than 100 barrels of toxic waste, may be the ship investigators filmed on Saturday.
Since the 1980s, when Italy passed tougher environmental laws about toxic waste disposal, environmental groups and prosecutors have suspected that Italian organized crime groups were pocketing the money to dispose of the specialized waste after dumping the waste illegally. Between 1985 and 1995, according to Italian environmental group Legambiente, there were between 40 and 100 cases of ships laden with waste that sank under strange circumstances in the Mediterranean. In each case, the ships did not signal “mayday,” and their crews disappeared.
The new finding may provide the proof prosecutors need to re-open archived, unsolved cases. One prosecutor told the Guardian that the discovery of the sunken ship had “all the appearances of being a confirmation” that the mob had disposed of toxic waste at sea. He said there could be as many as 42 ships sunk in the same manner.
Officials are now testing the contents of the barrels on the wreck.
“There could be problems of toxins and heavy metals…this is an issue for the whole international community,” Calabrian environmental agency head Silvestro Greco told Reuters.
“The Mediterranean is 0.7 percent of the world’s seas,” he said. “If in this tiny portion there are more than 30 shipwrecks, imagine what there could be elsewhere.”
--Beth Kampschror
