In Draguignan, the “waste mafia” condemned to repair disfigured sites

In this case of waste trafficking and illegal dumping, the sentence fell around 4 p.m. this Tuesday at the Draguignan courthouse.

The ten protagonists of the “waste mafia” were sentenced to terms of between 200 hours of community service and four years in prison (two of which were suspended on probation).

The main defendants are subject to a probationary period including an obligation to “repair” and a ban from exercising any activity in the transport of waste for two years.

Rubble unpacked outside the legal circuits

Under additional penalties, the court ordered a ban on running a business for five or even ten years.

The case, dubbed “Burnt lands” by the investigators, had highlighted a vast system of illegal dumping of waste from construction sites, between 2017 and 2020, in the Var and the Alpes-Maritimes.

The traffic organizers won clearing contracts with very competitive prices. Nice airport construction sites, Pôle Emploi in Cannes … The rubble was then unpacked on private or public land, and not in approved landfills.

Up to a million euros fine for companies

Seven companies (transport, earthworks, public works, etc.) were fined (up to one million euros) and many vehicles (utility vehicles, construction machinery, etc.) were definitively confiscated by the courts. .

The criminals posted, via online classifieds sites, offers of land fill or plant to hook owners. Around twenty sites were thus polluted and / or disfigured (Sospel, Roquebrune-sur-Argens, Le Luc, etc.)

The court ordered their rehabilitation at the expense of the defendants and convicted companies on Tuesday, December 14.

The defendants will also have to compensate many civil parties (several tens of thousands of euros in total) including owners of injured land, environmental defense associations but also the construction federations in the Var and the Alps- Maritimes.

In defense, the defendants had tried to put the charges into perspective by describing a practice according to them common, and a chain of responsibilities that would be broader than that which has been retained by the courts.

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