Environmental crime has quietly become the world’s third-largest criminal sector, generating an estimated $281 billion annually. This eco crimes series begins by revealing how a German company hid mercury smuggling behind corporate secrecy.
Behind many major environmental crimes lies a carefully constructed web of corporate opacity. When Germany’s DELA waste disposal company smuggled at least 800 tonnes of toxic mercury between 2011 and 2014, it didn’t operate in the shadows. It hid in plain sight behind legitimate recycling companies and regulatory arbitrage.
DELA collected mercury waste from different companies and charged approximately two million euros for its disposal. After the EU banned mercury exports in 2011, the company was the prime destination for unneeded mercury from the chlor-alkali industry and by-product mercury.
DELA was supposed to transform the toxic metal into harmless mercury sulfide by adding sulfur, then safely store it underground in salt mines. Instead DELA shipped pure mercury disguised as low-concentration waste to a Swiss recycling company. To fool customs officials, the transport containers were covered with soil. Another Swiss firm then sold it worldwide for up to $85,000 per tonne. Disguised mercury was also exported to the Netherlands and Greece.
DELA’s operation was as lucrative as it was illegal. Between 2011 and 2014, the two DELA executives walked away with a combined €22 million. One of them plowed much of that money into real estate on the pricey North Sea island of Sylt. To obscure the money trail, profits were partly transferred through a trading company of a trustee who died in 2013.
The scheme was uncovered through multiple investigative threads: While Swiss export records showed suspiciously high mercury volumes between 2011 and 2013 that prompted international scrutiny, the breakthrough came by chance in late 2013 when the Bochum public prosecutor’s office discovered an anonymous letter during an unrelated investigation. The letter detailed DELA’s illegal activities, leading to extensive searches of factories, offices, warehouses, and private residences that ultimately exposed the full scope of the fraudulent operation. Investigators later discovered that the mercury had turned up in Turkey, Singapore and elsewhere. Much of the mercury reaching its final destinations is predominantly used in gold mining.
The DELA bosses received prison sentences between three and a half years and three years and nine months. DELA went bankrupt and was acquired by Remondis. The Swiss companies either denied any involvement in illicit activities or declined to appear in the German court at all. The Netherlands sent back 98 of the 270 tonnes of mercury it had received. Greece returned 36 out of the 150 tonnes delivered. The recovered mercury was treated as planned: transformed into a stable solid form that is safer, then stored underground in salt mines.
What made this case even more troubling was the web of political connections surrounding it. Stephan Holthoff-Pförtner, who served as Europe Minister in North Rhine-Westphalia’s government until 2022, owned 50 percent of DELA since its founding. Despite his substantial stake, prosecutors never questioned him during their investigation, as WELT revealed. A 2015 police email noted that one DELA shareholder "enjoys acceptance at the federal political level". One of the original prosecutors later participated in the parliamentary inquiry examining the same case, creating conflicts of interest that were flagged but never resolved.
The corporate structures behind cases like DELA aren’t coincidental – they’re strategic. Environmental crime has surpassed human trafficking to become the world’s third-largest criminal sector – behind drug trafficking and counterfeit crimes – generating up to $281 billion annually according to Interpol.
What makes it so attractive to organized crime groups isn’t just the profits. It’s how difficult these crimes are to expose, prosecute and punish. Environmental criminals have discovered that corporate structures offer something more effective than guns or bribes: invisibility. Corporate secrecy shields the real masterminds – the owners, funders, and orchestrators – who funnel illicit profits back while prosecutors chase their frontmen.
The DELA case is just one example of how environmental crimes go corporate. It’s not the only one triggered by regulatory changes. When China banned plastic imports in 2018, European waste exporters quickly found new dumping grounds across Southeast Asia. In part two, we’ll trace how this shift fuelled the global environmental crime economy.