A man is seen working at a TV recycling junkyard which is considered e-waste in Dhaka, Bangladesh on October 30, 2022.
Kazi Salahuddin Razu/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Spanish police have dismantled a criminal group that was smuggling more than 5,000 tons of dangerous e-waste from Spain’s Canary Islands to several African countries, authorities said Tuesday.
Police have arrested 43 people suspected of illegally shipping 331 containers of used electronics to Africa in the past two years, the Finance Ministry said in a statement.
The network allegedly falsified the customs documents of the exported waste to make believe that the containers contained second-hand goods, in an operation valued at more than 1.5 million euros.
Most of the garbage was sent to Ghana, Mauritania, Nigeria and Senegal.
Africa has become a major dumping ground for discarded electronics from around the world, known as e-waste.
This is often burned to extract minerals such as aluminum and copper that can fetch a high value when resold.
Electronic devices and vehicle parts may contain cadmium, mercury, lead, arsenic, and other substances that can harm the environment or human health when mishandled.
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