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2.5 Trafficking in Hazardous Waste and Chemicals
from Countering Emerging Threats and Challenges of Transnational Organized Crime - Thailand's Perspective
How Hazardous Substances Are Trafficked
The Klong Toey and and Laem Chabang seaports, located near Bangkok and Chonburi respectively, are key entry points for toxic waste into Thailand. Enforcement against illegal trade is complicated by the legitimate trade in used electronic goods such as computers. The ASEAN states do not have uniformity in their definitions of e-waste and hazardous waste. Additionally, the Basel Convention contains exceptions for the transboundary movement of certain products and industries. If a company wants to ship a used computer, for instance, the computer will not be listed as waste as long as it is in working condition. The legal trade in used items provides cover for smugglers of e-waste. Traffickers frequently conceal hazardous e-waste by mixing working and non-working electronics inside the same container. Traffickers also frequently mislabel the containers to avoid import duties.
E-waste
Thailand is a source and transit country for trafficking in e-waste, which includes plastic cases and accessories of electronic devices, such as wires, motherboards and electronic boards. Thai authorities seized a significant amount of electronic waste mostly imported by sea from European Union countries (notably the United Kingdom and Germany), the United States and Japan. Thailand was not intended as the final destination for these shipments. Instead, the e-waste would have been dismantled in Thailand and then re-exported, along with e-waste of domestic origin, to China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia or back to origin countries, particularly Japan. There are also indicators that e-waste from Hong Kong is shipped to Laos through Thailand. Research conducted by the UNEP indicated that e-waste is exported to Cambodia from Thailand and other countries.193
Thailand lacks a large recycling infrastructure, which causes traffickers to use Thailand as a transit point rather than as a final destination. E-waste goes mainly to countries in need of raw materials for their developing electronic device manufacturing industries. The UNODC has estimated that 80% of e-waste produced globally194 is shipped to Asia, with 90% of that amount destined for China, while Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries are secondary dumping grounds.195
193 UNEP Regional Office for Asia-Pacific, communication, June 2011. 194 AP News. Thailand bans the use of paraquat and other toxic farm chemicals. Retrieved from https://apnews. com/27ba8bb2b1474626b3083a4082679305 195 INTERPOL. (2009). Electronic Waste and Organised Crime - Assessing the Links. INTERPOL. Lyon, 30..
Industrial Chemicals and Manufacturing Waste
Thailand was once a dumping ground for industrial chemical and manufacturing waste from OECD countries, in violation of the Basel Convention. With the growth of Thailand’s petrol and chemical industries, the country is now both a producer and recipient of hazardous waste.
Ozone-depleting substances (ODS) account for the majority of the chemical waste which flows into Thailand from other countries. This waste typically arrives at the Klong Toey and Laem Chabang seaports, not far from Bangkok. An interviewee also reported that large quantities of air conditioners are also smuggled from China into Thailand across the Laos-Thai border.
The interviewees’ perceptions are consistent with the literature describing Thailand as a key dumping ground for ODS in the Asian region. The Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection recognized that Thailand is one of the main export markets for Chinese hydrochlorofluorocarbons in air-conditioning systems because of large-scale property development in urban centres.196 The United Nations Environment Programme confirmed that Laos is often used as a transit route to smuggle ODS from India and China into Thailand, sometimes transiting first through Vietnam. For example, in June 2011, it was reported that Thai customs had intercepted 574 cylinders (13.6 kg each) of CFC12 smuggled across the border from Lao PDR.197
Thailand is also a destination country for banned chemical pesticides. An expert noted that eradicating prohibited chemical pesticides from Thai markets is challenging because most buyers are not aware of which pesticides are hazardous and banned, and public officials lack the expertise necessary to identify prohibited chemicals. However, as a recent attempt to solve the problem, in 2019, the Thai government had eventually banned the use of paraquat and other toxic farm chemicals.198
Second-Hand Heavy Machinery
The smuggling and illegal dumping of second-hand heavy machinery into Thailand has been a problem for decades, but authorities are unable to determine if the equipment is reused in local industries or just dumped. Secondhand heavy machinery is usually imported from Japan and Europe in ships’ cargoes and is unloaded at the Klong Toey and Rayong seaports. It either transits through Thailand or remains in the country, particularly in Rayong province. Smugglers commonly pretend that they are opening a factory in Thailand which requires secondhand machinery. Thai authorities verified that this is just a pretext to dispose of waste illegally.
Although local authorities are aware of the dumping of heavy machinery, there is no Thai law that directly prohibits these activities. Since this machinery is declared as industrial equipment, technically it is imported into Thailand legally. Port authorities do not have a mandate to deny its import into the country. Furthermore, there is no clear indication of which government agency is responsible for dealing with these cases.
196 Ibid., 32. 197 United Nations Environment Programme OzonAction. (2001). Illegal Trade in Ozone Depleting Substances - Is there a hole in the Montreal Protocol?. UNEP, 14. 198 United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime. (2013). Transnational Organized Crime in East Asia and the Pacific: A Threat Assessment. UNODC, Bangkok, 123.
Waste Traffickers
White collar offenders manage trafficking in hazardous waste and chemicals. Businessmen with expertise in waste disposal markets and international trade are skilled at avoiding detection. Several stakeholders noted that Thai entrepreneurs and influential business groups collaborate with foreign traffickers in the dumping of illegal waste.
Due to the huge quantities of waste transported to Thailand, experts state that these operations are well-organized and conducted by professionally structured criminal organizations. Movement of waste generally involves at least two countries and multiple individuals cooperating along the trafficking chain. Although many stakeholders agree that there is a transnational aspect to this crime, they reminded the research team that there is currently little concrete evidence to support this assertion.
Challenges in gathering evidence may be better understood in light of previous research conducted by INTERPOL, which concluded that pollution crimes are primarily conducted by a variety of legitimate recycling firms, waste traders and brokers who come together for a relatively short period of time to engage in an illegal transaction and then disperse. While acknowledging that organized criminal groups are actively involved in pollution crimes, INTERPOL stressed that these groups are more loosely structured than traditional hierarchical, centralized syndicates.199 INTERPOL envisioned waste moving through temporary networks of individuals with specific skills operating in semi-independent units in order to exploit a criminal opportunity, sometimes with a global reach.200 A study published by the UNEP further supported the argument that pollution crimes in Asia are primarily managed by white collar offenders, including legitimate businessmen and middlemen who deal in a range of illicit commodities.201
Although foreigners are certainly involved in the supply chain due to the international scale of the traffic, experts said that most exports and imports in Thailand are conducted by Thais, due to their knowledge of the local language. The waste management business is more specialized than the general market for goods and services: it requires specific expertise and a good knowledge of the local market, of local middlemen and of the trafficked products. It is difficult to operate in this field in Thailand without speaking the Thai language.
Public awareness of hazardous waste crimes has slightly increased. However, this has yet to result in preventive behaviours.
199 Schmid, T. (2010). The Darker Side of Tropical Bliss: Foreign Mafia in Thailand. Thailand Law Forum, 2. Retrieved from http://www. thailawforum.com/foreign-mafia-thailand.html 200 Department of Special Investigation of Thailand. (2013). DSI Annual Report 2013. DSI, Bangkok. 201 MGR Online. Thai webpage selling fake banknote. Retrieved from https://mgronline.com/onlinesection/detail/9620000104326
