Andrei Ciurcanu - In the last years, the civil society in Romania has been assaulted on television by images of prosecutors’ raids investigating illegal imports of textile waste disguised as second-hand clothes.
- Inspectors from Consumer Protection Agency and the Environmental Guard claim that despite these televised actions, most of the files with hundreds of illegal tons were either closed by the prosecutors, or when they arrived in court, the magistrates ruled in favor of the companies.
- An example is the case of a company from Târgu Mureș. In its warehouse investigators found more than 500 tons of waste disguised as second-hand clothes. Prosecutors dropped the charges citing the fact that the administrator admitted his mistake, promising to return the textiles. The Customs Authority, however, did not confirm the return.
- The companies investigated by the prosecutors received operating permits from the Environmental Protection Agency. Inspectors from the Consumer Protection stated that these authorizations were issued against the legislation on used clothes.
- The Environmental Protection officials claim that it is not their responsibility to check whether the companies comply with the provisions of the authorization and throw the responsibility in the yard of the Environmental Guard.
- In the last five years, one of the companies investigated by the prosecutors brought over 1,700 trucks to Romania, the equivalent of over 27,000 tons of products. The Environmental Protection Agency claimed that the company was operating legally and that it owned an automatic washing machine.
“MADE IN ITALY” BUSINESS
Romania is one of the EU countries where cement factories are used for illegal disposal of imported waste. Prosecutors found that cement-producing units were being used as a front.
According to Interpol, as soon as the waste crosses the border, the traffickers change the documents, and instead of reaching the cement factories, to be burned in the co-incineration process, they just simply abandon the waste.
Such a case happened four years ago, when the Environmental Guard together with the police discovered two illegal warehouses containing more than 400 tons of textiles from Italy. According to internal documents “most of the textile waste was leather and contained hexavalent chromium which could not be burned in cement factories”.
The Romanian companies investigated by prosecutors for illegal import of textile waste from Italy are related to a Romanian woman named Georgeta Trifa, nicknamed by the local media “the mother of waste“. The businesswoman has financial connections and shared the shareholding of some companies with some Italians accused of collaborating with the Acarino mafia clan. Some of them were sentenced to prison for fraud and waste trafficking.
According to the investigation documents, Trifa admitted the illegalities and that the textiles were never sent to the cement factories to be incinerated, as claimed in the import documents. Caught with illegally stored waste in two farms in Bihor County, the businesswoman made a commitment to clean up the area and also came up with a solution: Some local artisans, who would use the waste to produce “bags, purses, wallets, phone holders, key holders and belts“.
The explanation came as a shock to those who investigated the case and who showed that the textile waste was sent to Romania because its processing, sorting and recycling in Italy was much more expensive than in our country, which is turning into a “veritable big garbage dump” of Europe.
“With long-term storage and in unauthorized spaces, waste becomes even more dangerous for fauna, flora and humans. Of the many problems facing the planet, waste is one of the biggest sources of pollution and represents a problem with a major impact on the environment and the quality of life,” reads the prosecution documents.
Italy’s textile industry together with that of Germany, Spain, France, Spain and Portugal accounts for more than a fifth of the global market value, generating tens of millions of fibers each year. It is estimated that every European throws away 11 kilograms of textile material every year. Considering that less than 1% of all clothing is recycled into new clothes, the volumes that are incinerated or landfilled each year are enormous and have a decisive impact on the environment.
The textile waste imported by Trifa came from a company based in Prato, a provincial Italian city near Florence. Hundreds of companies specializing in the recycling of clothes and textile waste collected from all over the world are based there.
The company prides itself on providing assistance for a correct and eco-sustainable solution in the case of industrial waste disposal.
“Giving new life to waste is magic in everyone’s interest,” says the company’s website.
Prato is considered by the media as the Italian capital of textiles and a model of clothes recycling. The city is one of the largest Italian industrial districts and one of the most important industrial centers of fabric production in Europe, where natural fibers are recovered and recycled.
The international fame attracted not only applause but also criticism. Including from the former president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, who accused textile enterprises run by Chinese businessmen in Prato of breaking EU law on labor exploitation, tax evasion and illegal waste disposal.
Stefano Vignaroli, the former president of Italy’s Ecomafia Commission. Source: Facebook
The textile mafia from Prato
The Prato and Campania region are the two main centers of the used clothing supply chain in Italy. While Prato is under the influence of Chinese businessmen, Campania is considered the territory of the Camorra, the dreaded Neapolitan mafia organization, one of Italy’s oldest organized crime groups.
Despite the competition between mafia groups, Italian prosecutors have found that competing criminal organizations collaborate when large profits from the illegal transfer of waste are at stake.
The trade in second-hand clothes is a profitable and attractive business for Italian organized crime, Stefano Vignaroli, the former president of Italy’s Ecomafia Commission, explained in an interview.
Vignaroli claims that in recent years, the Camorra-controlled supply chain has structured itself and shifted its focus to partnerships with social cooperatives that, in collaboration with international charitable NGOs, manage containers of clothes.
As a result of these partnerships, in some areas have developed the so-called factories that “process” the waste and after export the goods to African countries.
“Profit varies with market fluctuations, but tends to be high because criminal enterprises do not comply with environmental regulations, which require clothing selection and controlled disposal; by avoiding these operations, and the related costs, they realize higher profits“, explained Vignaroli.
The former EcoMafia president described the textile and second-hand clothing sector as monopolized by mafia clans whose empires were built on cocaine trafficking. Without clear records and traceability, traffic in these textiles can easily be hidden in accounting documents.
“Avoiding costs and increasing profits is quite simple; previously the illicit disposal of the non-reusable fraction took place in territories controlled by the Camorra, where they were incinerated; today it continues by overcrowding landfills, which are subsequently abandoned and, more and more often, mixing waste with bales of used clothes and recyclables exported to Africa and India”.
After two years of investigations, the hundreds of tons of textiles discovered by the prosecutors are still abandoned in some farms in Ineu and Vadu Crișului, Bihor county.
Georgeta Trifa was sentenced to three years with suspension for the illegal removal and storage of waste. To the surprise of those who investigated the case, the judges also decided to confiscate the hundreds of tons of waste. Practically, the financial burden of removing illegally stored garbage has been transferred to the state.
A decision of the magistrates which, according to specialists in the field, shows that the phenomenon of waste trafficking is unknown to many magistrates in Romania.
“The judge who decided the confiscation did not understand that this merchandise cannot be recovered, on the contrary, someone has to pay for it to be taken over and processed. And it’s a lot of money. One thing is certain, much of that waste will end up in the landfill and public money will be used to solve the problem,” explained Ambrus József, specialist in integrated waste management.
He explained that the situation in Bihor is in the twilight zone due to the fact that the respective waste was illegally stored on private land. And the municipality is obliged to green the area only if the waste was on public space.
And if the wave of waste brought into the country under the pretext of being second-hand products was not enough, from next year the legislation on textiles will undergo a new change. As usual, Romania is taken by surprise, says Ambrus József.
“In 2025, the legislation will change and Romania will be obliged to collect textile waste separately. The big problem is that our country does not have a recycling industry. We are basically putting the cart before the horse again and I predict that Romania will face big problems. Because to the waste we produce locally, we add the large volumes of textiles that come from imports and the community area.“
FROM CANADA WITH LOVE
If in Bihor the case of illegal import of textile waste was dealt in court, in other situations the prosecutors’ files did not even reach the judges’ table. Even in the situation where the police and environmental commissioners claimed that in the warehouses of second-hand companies they discovered hundreds of tons of textiles, including clothes with human excrement.
January 2022, Constanța Port. The Coast Guard, police, prosecutors, environmental commissioners and consumer protection inspectors opened three containers loaded with clothing imported from Canada. All information suggested that it was illegal importation of waste.
After opening the containers, almost 77 tons of clothing were blocked from entering Romania. The reason – the textiles were in bad shape and did not have the cleaning and disinfection certificates required by law.
The Romanian press quickly picked up the statements of the prosecutors who investigated the case. “Romania will become a huge garbage dump“, because “waste transfers have become more profitable than drugs“.
A few days after the raid in Constanța harbor, the police and prosecutors went down to the central warehouse of the Best Choise company in Mureș, the one that received the containers. There investigators discovered another 500 tons of so-called second-hand clothes which, after a quick analysis, were actually classified as waste.
“We found dirty textiles with a specific smell, with hairs and traces of human excrement and fluids, degraded, torn and impossible to be placed on the market. (…) during the raid, objects were detected with a smell that is difficult to describe in words, a fact for which the police workers and the other officials involved in the research activity of 11.01.2022 had medical problems“, it reads in the investigation papers.
Following the same mechanism, the Romanian press again promoted again the wording of the prosecutors in their press releases. The news channels announced seriously that hundreds of tons of dirty and moldy clothes were illegally imported from Canada and arrived at one of the largest warehouses in Romania located in Târgu Mureș.
“During the raids it was terrible“, recalled Horia Constantinescu, the former president of the National Agency for Consumer Protection, who explained that during the descents the company’s representatives defended themselves by claiming that the entire cargo was subjected to the fumigation and disinfection procedure .
“We cannot talk about fumigation or nebulization in the case of hermetically sealed bags. Because the substances cannot penetrate the clothes and their texture. Fumigation is a measure applied only to means of transport. And if you fumigate the inside of a truck, that doesn’t mean you’ve cleaned the coat,” said Constantinescu.
Nebulization is the process by which, with the help of a special device, a liquid biocide is transformed into vapors. The technology is used to disinfect closed spaces and is mainly used in the medical field. The nebulization of a room ensures almost complete destruction of dangerous pathogens.
A few months after the raids, the prosecutors from Constanța dropped the charges and closed the case. The reason? “The suspects/administrator took responsibility (…) realized the mistake committed (…) and then proceeded to return the waste containers to the sender.“
The abandonment of the criminal investigation took by surprise the police officers, consumer protection inspectors and environmental commissioners who participated in the raids from Constanța and Târgu Mureș. Some of them being among those who needed days off after the descents from the warehouse, citing medical problems.
The Environment Commissioner, who agreed to speak to us on the condition of anonymity, said dropping all charges in this case sends a dangerous message to the market, given that only a small fraction of trucks transporting textiles are checked and blocked at the border from import.
“This is the message – Welcome please! It’s possible!” said the commissioner bitterly, who added that the real danger of textile waste disguised as second-hand clothing is not perceived by Romanian magistrates – prosecutors and judges.
“There are hundreds of referrals. You have to have judges to judge not only by the letter of the law, but also on the spirit of the law. The real danger is not seen as a danger until someone dies. This is the reality in Romania.“
Confronted with these situations in courts, the general commissioner of the Environmental Guard, Andrei Corlan, admitted that the current legislation does not cover the criminal phenomenon and that the law leaves room for interpretation.
“The fact that this space for interpretation is allowed through the national legal spectrum, obviously can be a problem. As long as we don’t have legislation on second-hand goods, anything can happen,” explained Corlan.
We asked Best Choise to explain what happened to the hundreds of tons and whether they were returned to Canada. Until the publication of this article Rise Project did not received a reply.
The prosecutor’s office from Constanța did not clarify either why the file was closed and how the prosecutors ensured that the employees of the Best Choise company really kept their word when they promised to send the 500 tons back across the ocean.
The Romanian Customs Authority refused to specify whether the company from Târgu Mureș exported the textiles back to Canada, but claimed that between January 2022 and October 2023, only two jackets were shipped to Canada from Romania. The weight: two kilograms.
THE WAR INSIDE THE AUTHORITY
The fight against textile waste trafficking is half lost due to the “internal war within the authorities“, according to the employees of the Environmental Guard and Consumer Protection. If the big cases fall in court due to easily interpretable laws, other cases are lost because the companies accused of illegally importing waste operate on the basis of authorizations issued by the country’s Environmental Agencies. Permits which Consumer Protection and Environmental Guard officials claim to have been released against the law.
In Romania, all companies dealing with activities that could have an impact on the environment must obtain an authorization from the Environmental Protection Agency. So are companies that import textile waste and later resell it as second-hand clothes.
In many of the criminal complaints, the Environmental Protection Agency is accused of issuing operating permits that contravene consumer protection legislation. Specifically, it provides a legislative loophole so that traders importing textile waste can sell it as second-hand clothing.
The President of the National Environmental Protection Agency (ANPM) avoided a meeting on this topic and preferred to answer our questions in writing.
“The sale of second-hand products is not regulated by the environmental agency,” the ANPM management wrote in a response to Rise. ANPM added that all clothing products derived from textile waste must comply with the regulations of the second-hand legislation. That law that says all products must be cleaned, disinfected and disinfected with certifications from specialized companies.
The reality on the ground contradicts the statements from the offices of the ANPM management in Bucharest. We discovered that the country’s Environmental Protection Agencies issued operating permits for companies accused of illegal waste trafficking and storage.
One of the companies that received such an authorizations is also based in Jiului Valley. In the authorization issued by the Hunedoara Environmental Protection Agency, it is written that the company is authorized to sell waste and scraps from Germany and that after manual sorting the waste results “sorted clothes and textiles that will be sold as used clothes through our own stores“.
The General Commissioner of the Environmental Guard claimed that the simple sorting of textile waste according to quality criteria is not equivalent to the transformation of a waste into a commercial product, as suggested in the text of some authorizations issued by the Environmental Protection Agencies.
“If you just take a piece of scrap and walk it across the table, it obviously doesn’t change the quality in any way. The intervention on a waste must be a mechanical, chemical, thermal treatment, in any way in which the result is a finished product, which no longer corresponds to the status of waste,” said Corlan.
The signature of the director of APM Hunedoara, Viorica Barabaș, can be found in the case of another authorization from 2022 issued for another company fined and accused of illegal import of waste (read the story HERE).
The authorization reads that the company could import 5000 tons of textile waste per year – the equivalent of over 300 trucks. In the same authorization it is claimed that after the manual sorting the waste transforms into quality clothing that can later be sold through second-hand shops.
It is false, said the former president of ANPC, Horia Constantinescu, who added that the legislation is clear – to have second-hand clothing, the clothes must be cleaned and disinfected by authorized companies:
“The internal war within the authorities is much bigger than the fight with the companies in the trade. If the authority had given firm messages, shoulder to shoulder, this message would have been taken to the market and they would have said – well, I’m not bringing anything here anymore because they will fill a criminal case against me.“
Contacted by phone, the executive director of the Hunedoara Environmental Protection Agency claimed that it is not the responsibility of the institution she leads to check whether the companies comply with the law and threw the blame in the yard of the Environmental Guard.
“We impose them through authorization, as written in the law, to do the monthly sorting and those textiles that have an acceptable degree of wear must follow the procedures. If they do or don’t do those operations, it is in the responsability of the Environmental Guard to check,” said Viorica Barabaș.
When asked to explain the text of the authorization, through which a waste turns into a product only by simple manual sorting, the director reacted that things are not quite like that.
THE WASHING MACHINE THAT DOES MIRACLES
The paragraphs from the environmental authorizations from Jiului Valley are copy pasted in the case of another company from Satu Mare, a city located in northern part of Romania.
“Through the valorization operations, waste becomes products that are reused as such, respectively are re-used (in the case of clothing, footwear and leather goods) – so they are no longer waste“, it reads the environmental authorization of a company that could processes 11,000 tons of textiles annually.
The company, Secondtextiliasam2010 has been in the sights of the control authority for several years. The last raids organized by the environmental and consumer protection teams took place in November 2022, when investigators claim to have found nearly 2,000 tons of textiles in the company’s warehouses.
Being in the premises of the company, the commissioners requested to check a truck that had just arrived at its destination. The doors of the container were opened and inside, in addition to dirty clothes and shoes, trash bags, CDs, hangers, toys, newspapers, cans were identified.
Asked to present the truck’s documents, the company’s employees, to the surprise of the investigators, provided two sets of documents for the same transport: second-hand invoices, with cleaning certificates, but also Annex 7, a document used for the transport of waste.
“The company disguises the shipments of waste as shipments of second-hand clothes” and “the environmental authorization was granted in violation of the legal provisions“, it is written in black and white in the criminal complaint of the Consumer Protection. Because the textiles were declared waste, the Environmental Guard inspectors fined the company 20,000 euros.
In an official reply, the Satu Mare Environmental Protection Agency explained that Secondtextiliasam revised its environmental permit and, among other things, bought an industrial washing machine with a capacity of 27 kilograms. The company is authorized to sell 12,000 tons per year.
Asked to explain whether a washing machine is enough, the Environmental Protection official asked reporters to come back with a new request for more clarifications.
Most of the textiles imported by Secondtextiliasam come from Hungary. The main partner is the company Textrade Kft. which owns one of the largest clothing sorting factories in the neighboring country and is supplied with textiles brought in from Great Britain, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Holland, USA and Australia.
Through a chain of companies Textrade and Secondtextiliasam are connected to the same businessmen.
The transactions between the two companies show a questionable business model. In documents, the company from Romania buys second-hand clothes from Hungary. After the goods arrive at the warehouse in our country, the Romanian firm resells the same type of products to Textrade. An analysis of several shipments shows that Secondtextiliasam resells the goods at a price almost ten times lower than the price used to purchase them from Hungary.
In the last five years, the company brought over 1,700 trucks to Romania, the equivalent of over 27,000 tons of products. Volume that places this company in the top textile importers of Romania.
The management of the company did not want to comment on the accusations of illegal import of waste, nor to explain the price differences and why there were two sets of documents for the same products.
Secondtextiliasam is now fighting in court to cancel the fines given by Consumer Protection and Environmental Guard. At least 29 cases appear registered in the Romanian judicial system. In half of the cases the company lost in court.
Waste trafficking has also come under the scrutiny of the Romanian Intelligence Service, which, in a 2020 report, drew attention to the fact that the phenomenon is connected to money laundering and the repatriation of funds.
“Sustainable development has been inhibited by the poor implementation of public policies associated with “waste management, dysfunctions in the activity of some institutions in the field, non-fulfillment of the obligations assumed towards the EU (waste, air quality, biodiversity conservation), the acute concern of private sanitation operators or in the hydrotechnical field ) to maximize their profits, through methods that affect the interests of the Romanian state and its citizens.“
The number of trucks stopped at the border almost doubled in 2023 compared to the previous year. Estimates are that 4,000 tons of waste were blocked at the entrance of the country, more than half of this amount being waste disguised as second-hand products.
These figures will change once Romania is accepted into the Schengen area, the moment when border control will disappear. Without an active registry for those who import textile waste/second-hand clothes, it will be almost impossible to control the trafficking phenomenon in the future.
The former president of Consumer Protection argued that there is a need to secure borders and strong legislation.
“We will all pay for this ecological disaster through the legacy we leave to our children, regardless of whether it is us, the Romanians, or other people from the countries where this waste comes from.“
Carla Lunguți, Cristian Lupșa 
Rise Project