| Report by Raymond Frenken, EUX.TV Script: First, there was ClimateGate - the scandal with hacked emails suggesting scientists have abused data for research on global warming. Now, another international climate scandal is emerging that may have an impact on the talks in Copenhagen. Europes top police body Europol, the closest thing that European Union has to the American Fbi, has exposed a massive fraud with the unions official market in carbon credits, the Emission Trading System. The fraud is costing tax payers in a handful of European countries more than five billion euro - 7 billion dollars - and raises doubts about the effectiveness of carbon trading as a measure to curb emissions. Europol director Rob Wainwright issued the following statement: These criminal activities endanger the credibility of the European Union Emission Trading System and lead to the loss of significant tax revenue for governments. Police authorities in Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom have worked together in what Europol calls a process to identify and disrupt the organised criminal structures behind these fraud schemes. Lets see if we can explain the scheme, using this graphic provided by Europol. The fraud is based on a what is tax experts and investigators call as a Carroussel fraud with missing traders. This carroussel generates money by stealing value added tax from governments. The first step of the criminals is to open a trading account with a ... |
