Slashdot Mirror
Mafia Sinks Ships Containing Toxic Waste
Hugh Pickens writes "For years there have been rumors that the mafia was sinking ships with nuclear and other waste on board as part of a money-making racket. Now, BBC reports on a sunken vessel that has been found 30km off the coast of Italy. Murky pictures taken by a robot camera show the vessel intact, and alongside it are a number of yellow barrels with labels indicating the contents are toxic. The ship's location was revealed by Francesco Fonti, an ex-member of Calabria's feared 'Ndrangheta crime group, who confessed to using explosives to sink this vessel and two others as part of an illegal operation to bypass rules on the disposal of toxic waste. Experts are now examining samples taken from the wreck, and an official says that if the samples prove to be radioactive then a search for up to 30 other sunken vessels believed scuttled by the mafia would begin immediately. 'The Mediterranean is 0.7 percent of the world's seas. If in this tiny portion there are more than 30 (toxic waste) shipwrecks, imagine what there could be elsewhere,' says Silvestro Greco, head of Calabria's environment agency."
Toxic waste sleeps with the fishes...
If they are connected to this mess and convicted
Good luck with that, as they say. If it's anything like NYC, Justice will pretty much need two separate news crews, six NYPD detectives, nineteen passersby, and a televangelist to witness one of the "made men" machinegun down a busload of out-of-town nuns at high noon in Times Square on the day before Election Day to be served.
Then the appeals process begins...
I'd start a record label.
Speaking of excuse and justification - This sounds like a good opportunity for the European Union to annex the countries on the northern edge of Africa, claim the Mediterranean Sea as an European inland sea, and bring an end to piracy with strong policing (as the Romans did 2000 years ago). We will, at last, know peace in our time. The Pax Europa.
Oh wait.
I forgot.
This is the EU not the U.S.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
And to see the possible effects of their involvement with toxic waste, go see Gamera.
You guys just stopped bleeding from the last time you did it (ask the French about Algeria). It's not *our* fault if you screwed it up.