A cross-agency operation assembled by the Civil Guard, the French Gendarmerie, the National Police, the Mossos d’Esquadra, and the Rural Agents of Girona successfully disrupted a dedicated waste-trafficking network. The scheme involved illegally collected waste from France being routed through Girona, Barcelona, and Lleida. In total, nine individuals were detained, while investigations were opened against ten more. The alleged ringleaders have already been incarcerated in France, underscoring the transnational scope of the illicit activity.
The alert originated from Seprona within the Girona Civil Guard Command and the Cos d’Agents Rurals in the same province, who flagged irregularities in January 2021 under Operation Dechet. The joint communiqué from the policing forces highlighted irregularities in the flow and documentation of the waste, signaling a coordinated effort to conceal the true origin and destination of the material.
The waste traced back to a recycling facility in the Nimes region and had initially been declared as coming from construction and demolition activities. The materials were misclassified as inappropriate waste and consisted of mixed plastics, paper, and cardboard, combined with rocky material from the landfill itself in Girona. The true composition remained concealed, and the substances were buried to obscure their management, causing significant harm to the environment.
Meanwhile, both the Mossos d’Esquadra and the Agents Rurals detected accumulations and discharges of waste at various sites across Girona province, including industrial warehouses, agricultural plots, and unauthorized construction and demolition waste dumps. The matter was coordinated with the Agència de Residus de Catalunya to map and address the environmental impact.
30,000 tons
The operation found that documents related to transfers had been falsified to camouflage the illicit activities, with waste routed to four designated destinations: two sites in Girona, one in Lleida, and one in Barcelona. Civil Guard audits confirmed this pattern across multiple records, revealing a systematic attempt to legalize illegal movements of material.
Records indicate that, by mid-2020, more than 30,000 tons of inappropriate waste had been introduced into Spain under the guise of recycling. This arrangement yielded substantial profits for the network, with the majority of the material ultimately buried in two landfills that were later ordered closed by the court in the Girona region.
Authorities stressed that the case illustrates how cross-border waste streams can be manipulated to evade regulatory scrutiny. The coordinated enforcement actions, supported by environmental agencies and the judiciary, aimed to hold individuals and entities accountable while safeguarding public health and natural resources. Ongoing investigations seek to determine the full economic impact and to identify any additional accomplices who may have benefited from the scheme. Reports and updates in official releases attributed the findings to multiple law enforcement bodies working in concert to dismantle the network and prevent further environmental damage, with ongoing cooperation between Spain and France noted in formal announcements from the involved agencies.