Minister of the Environment, Water and Forests Barna Tanczos underscored on Wednesday the importance of SUMAL ( Wood Tracking System) and SIATD (System for Waste Traceability) IT systems, adding that all criminality in the environment area leads, at some point, to economic criminality, according to Agerpres.

The Minister thanked the Economic Crimes Investigation Directorate of the General Inspectorate of Romanian Police (IGPR) for the manner in which they tackled, over the last period, criminality in the environment and forest exploitations areas.

„Today, the Economic Crimes Investigation Directorate conducted a control action together with our colleagues with the Ministry, based on the SIATD IT system, thus, based on an integrated computer system, which provides the details, the results, the basis for these controls, in the area of waste neutralization, of recycling, and where arrests have already been made and where a case of economic crime of over 70 million lei has been established. These actions require weeks, months of preparation and each time they are based on the IT systems which I have established since the beginning of the mandate and the usefulness and efficiency of which I honestly believe in, because all criminality in the environment area leads, at some point, to economic criminality,” he said.

Tanczos Barna brought to mind that, two weeks ago, „an extremely complex” action alongside the IGPR representatives took place, when 11 companies underwent verifications and tens of thousands of cubic meters of wood were seized.

„Crimes were established not only in the area of forest exploitation and wood processing, but also in the area of weapons and ammunition. I believe that the SUMAL 2 system, which provides the basis for these controls, shows its effectiveness. The integrated computer systems help a lot in documenting and proving these crimes,” the Minister of the Environment explained.

Police officers with the IGPR – Economic Crime Investigation Directorate conducted, on Wednesday, 14 house searches in Bucharest and in Ilfov County, and they also collected documents from seven commercial companies in a criminal case in which investigations are being conducted regarding crimes of tax evasion, fraud with particularly serious consequences, false statements and use of forgery.

The investigations revealed that, over 2020 – 2021, through some companies coordinated directly or through intermediaries, in view of obtaining sums of money, as bonuses, from the organizations which implement the obligations regarding the extended responsibility of the producer, the suspected persons would have provided these entities with supporting documents in which they would have recorded unrealistic collection and recycling activities of 22,236,016 kilograms of waste – packaging and WEEE (Recycle waste electrical, electronic and household appliances).

By reporting this amount in the responsibility transfer system, the Environmental Fund Administration registered a damage worth 79,085,258 lei.

Agerpres