Environmental crime and pollution: wasteful reflections (1).

The history of men is reflected in the history of sewers.... Crime,intelligence, social protest, freedom
of conscience, thought, theft, allthat human laws prosecuted or have prosecuted was hidden in this
pit. --Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
Introduction
IN THE 1970s, A NEW MENACE BECAME THE CENTERPIECE FOR A NEW GENERATION OF
environmentally minded reformers. Organized crime, which controlled the private sanitation
industry in the Northeast, moved center stage. This took place at approximately the same time that
the U.S. government passed the first important toxic waste legislation in its history. The most
significant legislation passed was the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act that mandated
special handling of the newly recognized category of waste called either toxic or
hazardous. Interestingly enough, the legislation was designed to patrol and discipline the waste
disposers, not the producers. It was based on the premise that once the waste passed from its
producers -- chemical companies and other industrial firms -- into the hands of the disposers, it
ceased to be the producers' property. In any case, a great deal of needed attention was focused on
the mob firms and their practices. There was some rectification of this when Superfund legislation
was passed in the early 1980s. It mandated that all responsible parties (prod ucers and disposers)
would have to clean up polluted sites. It has not always worked very well. I will discuss this issue at
some length using a particularly egregious organized crime waste group as a template.
Concentration on waste disposers had another significant side. Around 1970, several private carting
firms began a rapid process of expansion, buying dozens and dozens of small carting companies
and landfills across the country. In a relatively short period, they became the waste industry's most
important companies. I will spend some time explaining the methodology of expansion, for it bears a
striking resemblance to the methods employed by organized criminals. Reformers particularly
watched the giants, if for no other reason than their sheer size and, as I will show, their penchant to
behave improperly.
By the 1990s, the giants had finally moved into the New York marketon the heels of the government
finally doing something significant aboutmob control. Once New York was gained, another period of
intenseconsolidation took place. Two firms ended up controlling most of the NewYork market. This
was a somewhat unexpected development, I suppose, forone of the charges against organized crime
was that it had constructed amonopoly in New York. Thus, the criminal cartel monopoly was
replacedwith a two-firm oligopoly. I shall argue that the variance between themob cartel and the
giants when it comes to legal issues such asantitrust and pollution was not very large. I will take an
in-depth lookat the past practices of two large firms that were gobbled up in thelast phase of
consolidation in New York, for they were involved to onedegree or another with illicit plans and
actions to dump toxic waste inThird World countries. Finally, in the last section of the article, Iwill
discuss other kinds of companies t hat routinely pollute.
Criminal Cartels in Waste
In 1957, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management
Field, chaired by Senator John McClellan, showed that organized crime had built "business empires
in the private carting industry through a system of monopoly enforced by trade associations and
cooperative labor unions." (2) This was another instance of organized crime's domination of certain
working-class trades in New York, which included, at one time or another, cinders, cloth shrinking,

construction, flower shops, the Fulton fish market, funeral homes, hod carrying, ice, kosher
butchers, laundry services, newsstands, overall makers, paper hangers, taxicabs, waterfront
workers, and window cleaners. (3) Among the McClellan Committee's findings after two
investigations, one in Los Angeles, was the degree of ethnicity and kinship that bound racketeers in
waste together. In Los Angeles, Armenian heritage appeared to be the primary connecting
link, while in New York Italian roots were most significant. Among the owners of garbage firms who
were identified as racketeers in the Greater New York area were Antony Ricci, Carmine Tramunti,
Anthony Corallo, Nunzio and Vincent Squillante, Nicholas Ratteni, James Licari, Gennaro
Mancuso, Alfred Toriello, Frank Caruso, Joseph Feola, and Anthony Carfano. Several had already
acquired major reputations as organized crime felons.
It is not unusual to find a common heritage supported bysometimes-complicated kinship patterns in
trades, including thoseassociated with waste. A survey of Paris sewermen in 1979, for
example,found a persistence of "hereditary endogamy." Parisian sewerworkers were "more
commonly introduced into the service by anotherrelative who had been or was a sewerman--nephew,
uncle, cousin,brother-in-law, and so on." (4) Of course, Parisian sewermen didnot go on to own
private sewer businesses and create monopolies based oncriminally coercive practices.
At the base of the private sanitation criminal domains was the principle of "territorial rights," later
called "property rights." This meant that whatever garbage firm first contracted with a business to
pick up its rubbish had a right to that business forever. Indeed, the right extended to the location
itself, no matter what happened to the original contracting party. Naturally, it was a method of
dimming competition, although sometimes it was honored more in the breach than otherwise,
especially given racketeers' propensity to cheat and steal from one another.
Following the McClellan Committee's work in 1957, local, state, and federal authorities pursued
garbage racketeering decade after decade. Numerous investigations took place chiefly in the five
boroughs of New York City, in Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island, in Westchester,
Putnam, Orange, and Rockland Counties, just north and north west of the city, in Northern and
Central New Jersey, and at times in Philadelphia. Each investigation and prosecution revealed
organized crime's monopolies in private sanitation work.
The Routine Activities of Criminal Waste Enterprises
All County Environmental Service Corporation and its related firms is a template for the mobrelated solid and hazardous waste companies investigated over several decades in the New York
Metropolitan Area. It was a transporter of septic and hazardous wastes, a hazardous waste facility,
and a devotee of illegal hazardous waste disposal. The New York State Assembly Environmental
Conservation Committee offered an historical account of All Country, its crimes, and
corporate permutations from 1977 through most of 1984. (5)
For almost a decade, John, Robert, and Joseph Mongelli, together with brothers Frank and John
Coppola, owned and operated the Warwick, New York, headquartered All County. (6) In addition,
the Mongellis owned several waste disposal companies--I.S.A. of New Jersey, Inc., (7) Tri-State
Carting, Inc., (8) Grace Disposal and Leasing, Ltd., (9) Orange County Sanitation, Inc., (10) and
Round Lake Sanitation Corporation. (11) In testimony before the U.S. Congressional Committee on
Interstate and Foreign Commerce in 1980, two detective sergeants with the New Jersey State
Police, Dirk Ottens and Jack Penny, presented evidence tying the Mongelli family to Mario Giganti,
one of the important leaders of a major organized crime syndicate known as the "Genovese family."
(12) Giganti, the Mongellis' ultimate boss, was somewhat foolishly listed on the payroll of Round
Lake Sanitation in New York as a solicitor. By 1986, Louis Mongelli was described as a

"reputed...Genovese crime family member." (13) In 1989, John Coppola bec ame a valued member of
a New Jersey gubernatorial campaign team. (14)
The Mongellis and their associates were primarily engaged in the illicit disposal of hazardous waste.
In 1977, they took over the Penaluna Road landfill in Warwick, New York, and dumped toxic waste
at will, thereby threatening Greenwood Lake, a source of drinking water for around one million
northern New Jersey and New York inhabitants. I.S.A. trailers were spotted unloading drums of
sludge composed of oil, grease, and degreasers, while a Grace Disposal worker was on hand to
flatten the empty drums. Other information clearly showed industrial waste from a nearby Ford
plant was also disposed of at the landfill. Finally, the Newark Star Ledger reported that "thousands
of gallons of 'solvents...paint and pigment residues...dirty thinners...still bottoms...glue residue' and
other organic, toxic compounds were picked up from industries in New Jersey and slated for
disposal at Warwick."(15) To cover their tracks, the criminals created phony records indicating
some of these wastes went to a "safe" landfill that did not actually exist, and to another that had no
record of receiving any of the toxic products, even though it probably did.
The New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) ordered the Penaluna landfill
closed in 1980. Grace Disposal went out of business and the site, reported Assemblyman Hinchey,
"which is 36 acres in size and 50 feet deep, is now leaching organic chemicals and the toxic metals-cadmium, lead, and mercury--into a stream and wetland that feed Greenwood Lake." The estimated
toxic leachate, according to the DEC, was 7,200 gallons per day.
In the summer of 1979, All County moved some of its operations to New Jersey, though it still
maintained a significant presence in New York. It bought several storage facilities in the town of
Edgewater, on the shore of the Hudson River, and another in Newark. It did not inform New Jersey
authorities about the Edgewater facilities. They were discovered by New Jersey's Department of
Environmental Protection (DEP) over a year later. By the spring of 1983, the Mongellis and
their partners had a long list of hazardous waste violations in the State of New Jersey. From
Edgewater, All County improperly disposed of hazardous waste at Mount Marion, New York. It
continued its past practice with waste from the Mobil Chemical Company in Edison, New Jersey,
carting it to Wayne, Pennsylvania. It also hooked up with a New Jersey firm, S & W Waste, that
hobnobbed with racketeers and top state politicians. (16) In one deal, All County delivered PCBs to
S & W even though it was not licensed to receive them. Other similar All County
violations followed. For example, it delivered 3,338 gallons of supposedly flammable solvents to a
facility in Virginia. Burned three days later, it was subsequently learned that the shipment was
laden with PCBs. Once again, All County was not authorized to handle PCB wastes and the facility
was forbidden to burn them.
The Coppolas severed their relationship with All Country in the spring of 1983. At the same
moment, the Mongellis sold All County to a former employee, James Strom. He had first-class
training in illegally disposing of hazardous waste, having worked at the notorious Kin-Buc landfill in
Edison, New Jersey, the largest and leakiest chemical, landfill in the Northeast. It was closed in
1977 when toxic chemicals from the site were found pouring into the Raritan River, a
major drinking water supply. In this ever so slightly revamped venture, Stroin was joined by David
Rosenberg, who remained at his post of vice president and operations manager for the firm. It was
more of the same: principally the illegal disposal of PCBs. Stroin and Rosenberg only lasted in
business about eight months because they were caught sending PCBs from the same facility to the
Virginia firm that had illegally burned them for the Mongellis.
All County, under the ownership of the Mongellis and Coppola, had other criminal business
associates. One was RA-MAR Waste Management, owned by another Coppola brother, Ralph. This

firm specialized in septic tank cleaning and waste-oil collection. RA-MAR serviced
Westchester, Orange, and Rockland Counties in New York and was headquartered in New York and
New Jersey. RAMAR's operating philosophy was almost a mirror image of All County's. From the
autumn of 1979 to the summer of 1981, RA-MAR was cited for 20 distinct toxic waste violations in
New Jersey. RA-MAR and All County worked closely together from time to time.
There was also a strong connection between RA-MAR and two large New Jersey-based waste-oil
recovery companies--Noble Oil and Oil Recovery. Between May 1983 and January 1984, RA-MAR
reported taking 695,000 gallons of waste oil to Noble Oil Company alone. In May 1984, the
two waste-oil firms were indicted for their participation in a "massive operation in which hazardous
chemical wastes were mixed with heating oil and then sold to the public." The corporate officers,
Christopher Grungo (Noble Oil) and Joseph Cucinotta (Oil Recovery), were charged with
conspiracy, theft, deceptive business practices, and the illegal transportation and disposal of
hazardous waste. (17) Nonetheless, in May 1984, RA-MAR's permit to haul waste oil to Noble Oil
and Oil Recovery was renewed by New York State's environmental agency.
"Although All County Environmental Service Corporation is not presently in operation,"
Assemblyman Hinchey noted back in 1984, "the Mongellis and Coppolas still operate waste disposal
businesses in New York State." He added, "Round Lake Sanitation collects garbage in Orange,
Ulster, and Sullivan Counties," and Round Lake and another Mongelli/Coppola business, Tri-State
Carting Corporation, "are currently permitted by DEC to transport industrial wastes." ISA of New
Jersey was still hauling garbage in Orange County, New York. Obviously, the Mongellis were not
deterred by their past legal difficulties or by Assemblyman Hinchey's report.
The final section of the report contained Hinchey's suggestions. All of these facts, he wrote,
establish the need for "significant changes in the solid waste permitting program as well as further
investigation of specific corporations and individuals who are chronic violators of the Environmental
Conservation Law and who associate with businesses having similar backgrounds." Hinchey wanted
a tough "permit program to regulate private garbage haulers," an absolute "prohibition on the
approval of permits to individuals who simultaneously operate hazardous and solid waste disposal
companies," and a meaningful review of DEC's authority from the New York State Legislature to
deny and revoke permits. Hinchey's ideas did not take root, at least in his estimation. His
committee continued to bedevil the New York (and federal) regulators through the early 1990s with
reports and hearings that proved the regulators, at least, were not paying very much attention to
significant criminal polluters. (18)
In one remarkable case, Hinchey's chief investigator, Arthur John WoolstonSmith, determined that
an organized crime felon, Frank Sacco, was running a landfill in the Hudson Valley town of Tuxedo,
about 30 miles north of the city. Sacco had past convictions and prison sentences dating back 45
years that included an assault (stemming from an arrest for rape), extortion, loan sharking, witness
tampering, robbery, dealing in stolen securities, and an escape from prison, to mention a few. The
town's Justice of the Peace leased the site to Sacco. Others involved with Sacco in this deal were a
former assistant district attorney, the Tuxedo police chief, and a DEC official who took bribes from
Sacco and ended up as his mistress. (19) When Sacco's landfill was finally closed, shallow
groundwater monitoring established arsenic, iron, manganese, and selenium at levels in violation
of drinking water standards. Substantial concentrations of lead were found, as well as moderate
levels of toluene, benzene, xylene, trichloro ethylene, ethylbenzene, carbon disulfide, and zbutanone. The hazardous wastes at the site were attributable to "petroleum contaminated waste
soils and waste contaminated with industrial solvents." (20) The dead body discovered in the landfill
was one of Sacco's employees. (21)

The Mongellis were finally run to ground by federal authorities in the 1990s, although not because
there was a structured inquiry into criminal waste firms. It began because an FBI agent used to take
his morning coffee in a restaurant next to a Mongelli facility. The agent became upset with the
odors wafting into the coffee shop and determined to find out who or what was causing his morning
nausea. That led to several queries and those eventually led to an investigation. (22) As a result, in
October 1991 the Mongellis were indicted on federal racketeering charges for paying off the
"Genovese crime family and trying to bribe a state environmental official." (23) Also indicted were
the following Mongelli companies: Round Lake Sanitation, I.S.A. in New Jersey, Orange County
Sanitation, Continental Technology, Lake Region Service Garage, and AAA Recycling. The
Mongelli's, according to the FBI and Otto G. Obermaier, the U.S. attorney from the
Southern District of New York, "siphoned millions of dollars in cash fro m their businesses" using "a
number of intermediaries to 'launder funds' for them" for nefarious purposes. They were caught in
an undercover operation offering bribes "ranging as high as $500,000 for the first year and
$300,000 for each succeeding year" to a detective posing as a high-ranking DEC official. (24) They
wanted another landfill. It would take several years before the case was settled and the Mongellis
punished.
National Firms: Illicit Behaviors
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, three sanitation firms, one in Boston, another in Chicago, the
third in Houston, began a process of rapid expansion. Their growth took place in tandem with the
full blossoming of the environmental movement in the U.S., which forced the government to create
the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 and to pass important legislation dealing with toxic
waste disposal during that decade. The Boston firm, SCA Services, did not quite make it to the
top. It was publicly burned for its involvement with organized criminals in New Jersey and
corporate leaders with exceptionally sticky fingers.
In testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations in 1980 and 1981, a former gangster detailed SCA's complicity with organized crime.
At one hearing, the Committee summed up his testimony about SCA's expansion, noting that in its
expansion in the early 1970s, it bought small garbage firms and gave the owners stock in SCA and
an employment contract to continue operating their former firms as before. The gangster pointed
out, somewhat inarticulately, what this meant in New Jersey: "So you have the same people that
individually were controlled by organized crime into SCA." (25) SCA's reputation took an
exceptional drubbing in December 1980, six days after the subcommittee's first hearing featuring
the reformed felon's dissection of SCA's ties to organized crime. This time it was tied to an
organized crime homicide. On December 22, "Crescent Roselle, general manager of Waste
Disposal, Inc., one of SCA's largest New Jersey subsidiaries, was brutally murdered in a ga nglandstyle execution," shot numerous times while sitting in his car outside his company office. (26) In the
subcommittee's May 1981 hearing, a New Jersey law enforcement official blunfly stated that SCA
had other subsidiaries that were managed by mobsters. (27)
The other two national (in time, international) companies, Chicago's Waste Management Inc. (WMI)
and Houston's Browning-Ferris Industries (BR), fared far better than did SCA. Their chiefs quickly
stepped to the level of the very rich. Waste Management and Browning-Ferris did have their bumpy
moments. In the past three decades, each has pled either guilty or nolo contendere to
various charges ranging from environmental malpractice to shady business activities. Each has
aggressively maintained, however, that these problems were the result of simple mistakes, common
industry errors, or isolated acts carried out by lower-level employees who misbehaved without the
knowledge of the organization's leadership.

In a massive class-action civil case against Waste Management, Waste Management of North
America, Waste Management Partners, and Browning-Ferris, filed in summer 1988, however, afar
different picture emerged. There were seven named plaintiffs in this case: (1) Cumberland Farms,
an operator of convenience stores throughout the United States; (2) Kirschner Brothers Oil Co., a
marketer of petroleum products; (3) Dan Rosenberg, d/b/a Animal Hospital of Chester County, an
individual who operates an animal hospital; (4) George Gusses, an individual who operates a
business; (5) the Perry Corporation; (6) Uncle Donald's, d/b/a Huey's; and (7) Overton Pub, d/b/a
East End Pub. The suit was based on alleged violations of Title 1 of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
In it, the named plaintiffs and the class they represented, who "have directly purchased, in the
course of their business, containerized solid waste removal and disposal services from one or more
of the defendants, their wholly-owned subsidiaries, affiliates, and alleged co-conspirators," (28)
were all customers of either WMI or BR. The plaintiff's attorneys alleged that WMI and BFI
"engaged in an extensive pattern of anticompetitive activity across the United States," engineered
and directed by their "national and regional officers." (29) In a 111-page memorandum developed in
1990 that successfully defeated a motion by the defendants for a summary judgment, the plaintiffs'
attorneys started with 10 key points:
1. George Farris, BFI's chief financial officer, met with Donald Flynn, WMI's chief financial officer,
and with Harold Gershowitz, WMI's senior vice president. Flynn and Gershowitz disclosed that, in
view of the fact that "the environment for price increases is improving," WMI planned to implement
a "'4-5%" national price increase over the next few years. This one meeting alone compels the
denial of defendants' motion.
2. A government memorandum reported that criminal price-fixing by the defendants in Atlanta "can
be attributed to more than overly aggressive local managers" and was "probably directed
by corporate officials from the company headquarters."
3. A sworn declaration from a BFI sales manager describes how John Drury, then BFI's executive
vice-president, orchestrated price-fixing activities in Atlanta.
4. A former BFI executive testified that BFI' s national director of labor relations told him to "get
together with Waste Management" and end a price war in Ohio.
5. Ed Drury, BFI's national vice president, directed price fixing in the Arrowhead region (Colorado,
Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, and
several Canadian provinces). (30)
6. John Drury, BFI' s president, personally appointed John Pinto as vice president to head BFI's
northeast region. Pinto had clear ties to organized crime and was subsequently indicted and
pled guilty to bid rigging, price fixing, and bribery of officials.
7. John Drury, BFI's president, assigned a new district manager to Pittsburgh with instructions that
the sales manager report directly to him. The district manager proceeded to engage in price-fixing
and bid rigging, and periodically delivered suitcases of cash generated from these activities to
Houston for use as payoffs to public officials.
8. A BFI salesperson testified that she was not permitted to solicit WMI customers and when she
attended sales meetings with salespersons from other districts, learned that it was a companywide policy.
9. Both BFI and WMI encouraged price-fixing by actively promoting employees who engaged in it.

Bruce Ranck, for example, was a principal target of a state antitrust prosecution (which BFI settled
for $350,000) and federal antitrust prosecution (to which BR pled guilty and paid a one million
dollar fine). Notwithstanding his involvement in illegal activity, Ranck was promoted and now holds
the position of executive vice-president of BFI, with responsibility for all of BFI's North American
solid waste operations.
10. BFI's vice chairman and national director of marketing, Norman Myers, paid a bribe to defeat a
competitor's landfill application, and then attempted to conceal this payment. (31)
Plaintiffs' attorneys went into the history of WMI, pointing out that WMI's predecessor firms
belonged to the Chicago Suburban Refuse Disposal Corporation (CSRDC) through the 1960s and
into the early 1970s. Nearly all the private waste companies in Chicago were part of CSRDC and
operated under a system called the "Chicago Rules," which added up to precisely the same system
of "property rights" discovered by Senator McClellan in his New York racketeer investigation. (32)
Furthermore, it was asserted that as soon as WMI was formed in 1968 and BR in 1969, they started
to buy CSRDC companies. "As members of the Chicago families became absorbed into WMI
and BR," the plaintiffs' memorandum holds, "the 'Chicago rules' became a national code of
conduct." (33) In terms of the structure of waste malfeasance, the mobsters in New York and
New Jersey ruled through the "property rights" system and, importantly, through their control of
private landfills (although illegal entry to municipal landfills through bribes has bee n a constant as
well). (34) The Pennsylvania case alleges that WMI and BFI did the same. "The defendants have
gone to extraordinary lengths to obtain control of landfills," the plaintiffs' counsel
argued, "including the bribing of state officials." (35)
The plaintiffs' claims were further buttressed by a detailed and damning series of cases that
included examples from the 1970s and 1980s. There were bribery and price-fixing cases, including a
1987 case in Ohio that alleged BFI and WMI subsidiaries engaged in price-fixing and "customer
allocation" in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. The companies pled guilty and each paid a
one million dollar fine. (36) In the five-year period before the filing of the Pennsylvania case, it was
pointed out that "federal prosecutors convened grand juries to investigate anticompetitive conduct
by BFI or WMI subsidiaries in Rochester, New York; Toledo, Ohio; Orange County, California; San
Diego County, California; Memphis, Tennessee; Birmingham, Alabama; Orlando, Florida;
Jacksonville, Florida; Phoenix, Arizona; Kansas City, Missouri; Oahu, Hawaii; Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania; and Columbus, Ohio." (37) Most of the fines were below one million dollars and had
no effect on the companies' earnings.
In fact, from 1977 to 1989, WMI's gross income went from $60 million to $850 million, and BFI's
zoomed from $33 million to $423 million. The chief operating officers' earnings were
spectacular. From 1987 to 1989, WMI's chief executive officer, chief operating officer, and
treasurer received compensation packages of $12.8 million, $16.3 million, and $25.1 million
respectively. In 1989, their personal holdings in WMI stock had a value of $l17 million, $38 million,
and $33 million. (38)
To drive home the plaintiffs' point that the price-fixing conspiracy was national, the memorandum
claims to have "hard, documentary evidence that the highest ranking officers at BFI and WMI met
to exchange information regarding future pricing." (39) Supposedly, they met under the guise of
what they called "The Splinter Group of the New York Society." In their summation, plaintiffs'
attorneys noted that WMI's chief financial officer and its senior vice president, and BFI's senior vice
president attended these meetings. There they shared information on "future marketing plans...bids
on future projects, expansion plans, anticipated capital expenditures, profit margins, and dividend
policies." (40)

There is little doubt that the plaintiffs' suit had merit and it established that at least part of
organized crime's methodology of control in the waste arena, so strongly and repeatedly
condemned, has likely been common waste industry practice. At the center nestled "property
rights/Chicago rules." Corporate expansion, on the other hand, was engineered through "predatory
pricing" practices designed to drive uncooperative small firms to the wall. As Professor Howard
Smith describes it, "a price is predatory if it is below the seller's otherwise profit-maximizing price
and is charged for the purpose of eliminating competition in the short run and
reducing competition in the long run." (41) Once that is accomplished and a monopoly, or more
likely, an oligopoly achieved, prices rocket up. On October 30, 1990, Waste Management agreed to
pony up $19.5 million and Browning-Ferris $30.5 million to settle the antitrust case. (42)
Cumberland Farms: Sins of the Plaintiff
The above discussion should not be taken to mean that the first named plaintiff in the case,
Cumberland Farms, was itself a "clean" company. The company started life in 1938 as a roadside
milk and egg business in Cumberland, Rhode Island, A Greek immigrant, Vasilios Haseotes, owned
the stand and turned it into a convenience store. It eventually became the nation's thirdlargest convenience store chain, and the largest independent gasoline retailer in the 1980s. It
reached the top after buying most of Chevron's and Gulfs northeast marketing facilities for around
$350 million. This purchase gave Cumberland an additional 3,373 jobber and dealer
supply contracts, and 20 terminals. (43) Clearly, this was its high point. On January 7, 1991,
Cumberland was sued by the Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency for
"unlawfully filled wetlands." (44) More bad news came that summer. The Philadelphia Inquirer
reported that Cumberland Farms coerced "its convenience-store employees to confess to thefts they
had not committed." (45) In the spring of 1992, Cumberland filed for Chapter 11 protection. (46)
Several years later, Cumberland lost a suit to Goldman Sachs for stealing three million barrels of oil
from Goldman's trading unit, J. Aron. This was the culmination of years of legal wrangling and
payouts by Cumberland to Goldman. Earlier, Goldman had recovered approximately $41 million
from Cumberland, which it accused of "unauthorized blending, burning, and outright theft of about
5% of the 57 million barrels that J. Aron processed." (47) More dreary environmental news was still
to come, including Cumberland's neglectful running of an air-polluting refinery in Newfoundland.
(48)
The Changing New York Market and Waste Consolidation
During the 1990s, New York prosecutors, particularly Robert Morgenthau, the New York County
(Manhattan) district attorney, finally took on the task of busting organized crime's dominance in
the private New York waste market. They successfully prosecuted some and sued others from the
underworld of waste and their trade associations (including The Greater New York Waste Paper
Association, The Kings County Trade Waste Association, the Association of Trade Waste
removers of Greater New York, and The Queens County Trade Waste Association). (49) In this
complicated and long investigation, BFI played an undercover role in the demise of the organized
crime cartel. With BFI's permission, Morgenthau placed an agent into its New York operation.
Evidence was gathered on the mob's tactics in an attempt to chase the firm from the city. BFI trucks
were tailed, stolen, and disabled. Executives endured threatening phone calls and letters. (50) In
June 1995, Morgenthau's 114-count indictment ended the siege. Almost two years later, BFI bought
the Manhattan routes and trucks of one of the mob outfits, Five Bros. Carting Co, whose owner,
Michael D'Ambrosio, was secretly recorded telling Morgenthau's undercover agent that BFI was "a
bug that needed to be crushed." (51) D'Ambrosio pled guilty to "enterprise corruption." He was
fined one million dollars and sentenced to prison.

The giants (BFI and WMI) had finally broken into the New York solid waste market, the nation's
largest. Joining them in New York were a fast-rising firm named USA Waste Services and a smaller
conglomerate, Eastern Environmental Services, with deep ties to the largely criminal New Jersey
scene. Though some in New York talked about stasis in the newly consolidated market, remarkable
changes were on the way.
The most stunning development was a merger between WMI and USA Waste. In 1998, "old" WMI
was "acquired by smaller rival USA Waste Services Inc. for stock valued at about $13.5
billion." Although the new company would still be called Waste Management, it would be run by the
leaders of USA Waste, with its main corporate office in Houston. (52) The result of the logic of
consolidation, cost reductions were achieved by consolidating routes and sacking "redundant"
employees. (53) The move was carried out by USA Waste's chairman, John Drury, the former BFI
president who was identified as a key director of the long price-fixing conspiracy with WMI in the
Cumberland Farms et al. case.
Consolidation's Odd Twists and Turns: The Return of the Irrepressible
In 1990, Drury quit BFI in a disagreement over policy issues. Three years later, he was asked to
head USA Waste. He took the post in 1994 and mandated "no recycling, no overseas ventures." (54)
Under Drury, USA Waste was on the prowl for other waste companies. In 1995, it gobbled up
Chambers Development, "which had 50 collection operations in eight Atlantic seaboard states." The
following year it bought out a California-based firm that also operated in Texas, Louisiana,
Arkansas, Colorado, and Florida. Around the same time, USA Waste announced it would buy
another waste conglomerate, United Waste Systems, based in Connecticut. The Connecticut firm
had purchased five waste collection businesses and two transfer stations in Wisconsin, Minnesota,
and Pennsylvania the year before. (55) On the last day of 1998, Drury bought out Eastern
Environmental Services. (56) Now only two major competitors remained "in the multibillion-dollar
trash disposal market in New York City and...in cities in Pennsylvania and Florida," said a
somewhat concerned Justice Department, which nevertheless allowed the deal to go through after
Eastern and Waste Management shed some companies in several states. (57) Eastern had
just acquired several allegedly "former" mob trash firms in New Jersey, and two Florida firms. One
beneficiary of the Waste Management-Eastern deal was an emerging trash conglomerate,
Republic Services, headed by Wayne Huizenga, who was responsible for the original creation of
Waste Management in Chicago. Huizenga, like Drury, had taken time off from garbage. However, he
spent his off time creating Blockbuster Video, the nation's largest video rental company, and buying
a professional sports team or two, a stadium here and there. Republic picked up some of the
discarded firms and was well on its way to becoming another major player in the wildly
consolidating waste world.
USA Waste: Two Sleazy Background Issues
USA Waste was pushed into the very big leagues of waste, before its deal with Waste Management,
through its purchase of United Waste Systems, which came to life in 1989 under the aggressive
leadership of its 33-year-old chairman and CEO, Bradley S. Jacobs. (58) By 1992, United had
landfills and composting and recycling centers in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts,
Kentucky, Mississippi, Michigan, and Connecticut. Despite these activities, it had lost $4.5
million since 1990. Nonetheless, some observers thought its prospects were promising, for United
raised $36 million in new capital in 1992 through an Initial Public Offering (IPO) of its stock. It
planned to spend the money on five new acquisitions. (59)
1. The Meditative Bradley Jacobs

Chairman Jacobs' background was somewhat baffling. According to the Hartford Courant
(Connecticut) newspaper, Jacobs' CEO experience started in 1979, at the age of 23, with Amerex
Oil Associates, which had its corporate offices in Morristown, New Jersey. (60) From 1984 to July
1989, he headed up an international trading company based in England, Hamilton Resources (UK)
Ltd. (61) What Jacobs did for, or with, Amerex or Hamilton Resources is not noted in any published
account of his background. It seems there was much to hide, for he had worked with a cast of
Europeans and Americans suspected of illicitly selling toxic waste to the impoverished West African
country of Benin, making night runs of toxic waste to other West African countries, and likely
selling oil to South Africa while the U.N.-sponsored embargo of oil to Pretoria was running.
To attempt to unravel this suspected misbehavior and place it into perspective, one must go back to
a company called Pan Ocean Oil, which started in 1970 with $16 million in cash. Six years later,
after it finally hit pay dirt drilling in the North Sea, Marathon Oil bought it for $260 million. (62) In
the extremely complex structure of an oil major, Pan Ocean's ownership had been in the hands
of Marathon's wholly owned subsidiary, Interocean Oil. This entity became, or was subdivided into
a firm called Interocean Oil (Nigeria). On November 1,1982, all of Interocean's stock was sold and
its interest in what was by then Pan Ocean Oil (Nigeria) was "transferred" to Impex Ltd., a firm
incorporated in Anguilla, a small and somewhat notorious island nation in the British West
Indies. (63) Anguilla's notoriety is based on its penchant for allowing a host of criminals, many in
the narcotics business, to establish phony banks, some no more than trailers in goat pastures.
Pan Ocean next turned up as a series of interrelated firms: Panoco Group, PNOcean (supposedly
with offices in New York and Houston), Panoco International, Panoco (Geneva), Panoco (Nigeria),
and Panoco (Benin). To muddy the waters a little more, a Panoco entity was affiliated with
the United States Oil Co., based in New York, whose director also ran Panoco (Geneva), which, it
was reported, "operates in Nigeria through Pan Ocean Oil (Nigeria). (64) The Geneva-based Panoco,
and I presume all the rest including Impex in Anguilla, were directed by an Italian, Vittorio Fabbri,
who had an office at 375 Park Avenue, New York. Standing behind Fabbri as the owner of most of
the above entities was supposedly another Italian named Bellini.
British journalists from Box Television tie Bradley Jacobs to this group, since Fabbri supposedly
introduced him to the pleasures and potential profits of selling European and American hazardous
waste to Beam. In 1985, Panoco (Geneva) persuaded the Benin authorities to scuttle a contract with
Saga Petroleum, a private Norwegian oil company, and instead to contract with Panoco (Beam). (65)
It was the beginning of a very convoluted series of deals, unraveled principally by Box
reporter Adam Kemp, that ultimately led to Jacobs. Kemp found that the Republic of Benin agreed
to receive about five million tons of toxic waste a year for 10 years for a "mere two dollars and 50
cents a ton." The contact was signed with a Gibraltar company named SESCO. Looking for SESCO
led Kemp to London's elegant Eaton Square and Hamilton Resources, which was listed in the phone
directory as a "Local Listening Post for Crude Oil Market." A little sleuthing turned up an item from
Greenpeace, which accused Hamilton of involvement in a "possible dumping deal" with
impoverished Guinea Bissau. Hamilton issued a denial stating, "our company has never made
any attempt to build a landfill" there. Kemp went to Companies House in London, where he
discovered that almost all the shares of Hamilton Resources were owned by Hamilton Resources
(Gibraltar). Moreover, Hamilton and SESCO used the same registered office, Finsbury
Management, in Gibraltar. Documents showed that SESCO and Hamilton (Gibraltar) had appointed,
at the same time, two other firms as directors--"Amwell Servicing and Tikka Overseas Amwell
Services, in the British Virgin Islands." A check of documents in Washington, D.C., revealed
SESCO correspondence signed by Josephine Mandel, apparently a company director. She
subsequently appeared as the company secretary of Hamilton Resources UK Ltd. Hamilton's records
listed her address as "Lima, Peru." Not unexpectedly, inquiries in Lima to find her were fruitless.

London's Hamilton Resources listed a Jill Aldridge as another director. She had an address in
Holland that turned out to be a Transcendental Meditation study center run by followers of
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Aldridge had lived there, but left a few months before Kemp arrived in
Holland looking for her. Box Television reportedly found her working at Roydon Hall, the "cult's
headquarters" in Kent. Bradley Jacobs was also known as a devotee of Transcendental Meditation.
Kemp called Jacobs, who admitted he knew the name Jill Aldridge and then rang off.
Benin was the last stop in this puzzling investigation. Beam's self-styled Marxist President, Mathieu
Kerekou, had signed a contract with SESCO's representative, Lamia Catche, for a 10-year
toxics deal. In other Beam government documents, however, Mine. Catche is "named as Executive
Vice President of the Group Hamilton Resources." Kemp gathered increasing evidence that proved
Bradley Jacobs had put together a three-part transnational toxic waste dumping scheme. First, a
network of waste brokers was created to scour factories in Europe for product; second, SESCO was
formed to do the same in the United States; and third, MJ Carter Associates was retained to help
plan a huge landfill in Benin.
The waste intended for Benin was described as "very, very volatile solvents, which would fairly
readily burst into flame." There were also herbicides, methylene chloride, and degreasing
solutions made of "organo-chloride compounds" that were guaranteed to evaporate under the
African sun and thus pose a serious health hazard to landfill workers and the many people living on
the perimeter of the site. Benin' s alarmed health minister, Andre Atchade, wrote the following to
President Kerekou: "These schemes are disastrous for our country and constitute a threat to the
safety of our land and people.... We should remember Chernobyl." The president fired him and then
placed him under house arrest for his audacity. Jacobs first denied having anything to do with the
project. He told Kemp, "you know, it's a farce; it's like a total farce." Later, however, he admitted
his involvement.
2. Eastern Environmental: The Saga of the Unwelcome Ash
Another USA Waste purchase, Eastern Environmental, had a problem stemming from the dumping
of toxic waste in the Third World. In 1988, between 2,000 and 5,000 tons of Philadelphia's toxic
incinerator ash were dumped on the beaches of the Haitian coastal town of Gonaives. (66) The ash
was the property of a waste disposal outfit, Joseph Paolino and Sons. That firm had taken over a six
million dollar contract to dispose of Philadelphia's ash, which "contained lead, cadmium, barium,
arsenic, mercury, dioxin, and cyanide." (67) Paolino hired Amalgamated Shipping of the Bahamas,
which engaged the ship Khian Sea to carry the ash somewhere in the Caribbean. The ship left port
on August 1986 with approximately 14,000 tons of ash. It tried to unload in the Bahamas but failed.
Then it spent almost two years in limbo trying to find some Caribbean country that would make the
deal. In the last week of October 1987, Haiti's Department of Commerce granted permission for the
ship to unload on the beach at Gonaives. Within a few days, however, the Haitian government, in
particular the Minister of Commerce, announced a change in policy and wished to cancel the
permit. It was too late. The ship was gone and part of Philadelphia's ash lay on the beach. (68)
About 10,000 tons remained on board when the Khian Sea slipped out of Haitian waters. The ship
tried repeatedly to find a country to accept the cargo. It underwent suspicious name changes and
sailed to the Mediterranean to try several spots, including Suez. Finally, somewhere between Suez
and Singapore, it offloaded the rest of Philadelphia's ash.
Years later, the New York Trade Waste Commission, a new regulatory agency put in place by Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani to help combat mobster control of the waste industry, found a connection between
Eastern Environmental and Joseph Paolino and Sons, and thus the toxic ash. The head of Eastern

and its largest shareholder is Louis D. Paolino, one of Joseph's sons. The old man had died in 1984,
but the firm continued. In 1991, it was charged with various crimes related to cheating its workers
out of wages and benefits. In 1995, it was fined by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for having
radioactive material without a permit. After that, it seems to have disappeared. The Trade Waste
Commission determined that Eastern would not be licensed to operate in the city until it helped to
clean up Gonaives. Although everyone involved seems to deny a connection between the Paolino
company and Eastern Environmental, beyond the genetic, Eastern finally agreed to pay two-thirds
of the costs to remove the ash from Haiti. (69)
3. Serious Strains in the Marriage
The waste industry is so volatile that centralization soon began to crack a bit. At the turn of the
millennium, the new Waste Management filed a lawsuit concerning its $1.3 billion purchase of
Eastern Environmental, which it was alleged, "overstated its profits." (70) John Drury, who by
August 1999 had become Waste Management's former chairman and CEO, was also named in the
suit, as was Rodney Proto, WMI's former president, sacked at the same time Drury retired. Drury,
who was quite ill, and Proto were thought to have "personally" benefited from "deals with
Eastern's chairman, Louis Paolino." In this alleged scam, in the autumn of 1995, Paolino, then a
vice-president of USA Waste, joined with several others to buy out Eastern Environmental; they took
control of Eastern in 1966 and began "a systematic accounting fraud which caused the operating
performance of Eastern to be regularly and materially overstated." (71)
Reflections
Two main methodologies have long characterized the U.S. waste industry: property rights and
predatory pricing. (72) Nearly all the firms, from those controlled by organized crime to the Giants,
have been guilty of one or both of these offenses. In addition, they have all been guilty of recklessly
dumping toxic waste into leaky landfills and faulty incinerators. (73) Every one who understands the
waste industry knows this. Even a generally sympathetic story in Fortune magazine about
BFI noted that its reputation in the 1980s was odious. The magazine described the company as
"entangled in price-fixing and pollution cases from Louisiana to Niagara Falls." A New York
State congressional report held BFI's methods to be virtually the same as those used by "organizedcrime carters." (74) This statement was only partially accurate, however. The Giants were addicted
to national and international expansion--Waste Management operated in Saudi Arabia as early as
the 1970s--while the sway of the various crime cartels in waste was local or regional. The few mob
firms seeking landfills much further afield were usually knocked about by citizen's environmental
groups and, from time to time, state law enforcement. Local papers, often in rural Midwestern or
Appalachian counties, had a field day printing stories about how the New York Mafia was invading
their town or county. The value of a "bad reputation" was not very useful when it came to expansion
outside the Northeast, with an occasional exception.
The organized crime companies did not go public; they sold no stock. Their companies were, to put
it mildly, closely held. This was at least partially done to keep their books from the prying eyes
of outsiders. Although some profited greatly from their business acumen, they also had a penchant
for stealing worker's benefits from their controlled Teamster locals. Thus, they could never match
the kind of capital that the Giants routinely raised. Waste Management and BFI were public
companies; their stock was traded on the Exchange. The gangsters' forte was more along the line of
extortion, and they lived in a perilous environment of their own.
The Giants were ruthless in their zeal for growth. They were very aggressive when accused of
criminal behavior and were not at all reluctant to sue critics for besmirching their good names.

Their executives did not have "rap sheets." Predatory pricing was their main methodology and that
meant antitrust violations. No one, except the victims, equated those sorts of activities as examples
of real racketeering. Even in the two examples of the past flirtations of USA's affiliates with Third
World despots to unload their toxic products at bargain basement prices, little reaction was
aroused. Indeed, scarcely anyone in the U.S. knew anything about Jacobs' activities in Benin, his
Gibraltar company, or his alter ego SESCO. Moreover, no one in authority raised much of an
eyebrow over what must have been significant connections between Eastern's current officers and
the firm that dumped ash in Haiti, so long as Eastern paid a large portion of the cleanup. (75)
NOTES
(1.) Originally presented at the Second International Conference for Criminal Intelligence Analysis,
"Assessing Tomorrow's Challenges Today," sponsored by the Royal Institute of International Affairs,
National Criminal Intelligence Service, Interpol, London, England, March 1999.
(2.) U.S. Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field,
Hearing: Organized Crime in the New York Private Carting Industry (Washington, D.C.: Government
Printing Office, 1957: 6672).
(3.) Alan A. Block and William J. Chambliss, Organizing Crime (New York: Elsevier, 1981: 14-15).
(4.) Donald Reid, Paris Sewers and Sewermen: Realities and Representations (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1991: 169-170).
(5.) Maurice D. Hinchey, Chairman, the New York State Assembly Standing Committee on
Environmental Conservation, Criminal Infiltration of the Toxic and Solid Waste Disposal Industries
in New York State (Albany, NY: September 13, 1984); also Alan A. Block (ed.), The Business of
Crime: A Documentary Study of Organized Crime in the American Economy (Boulder, CO: Westview
Press, 1991: Chapter 7; 175-196).
(6.) John R. Coppola, Vice President, All County Service Corporation, "Application to Dispose of
Solid Waste at the Orange County Solid Waste Disposal Facilities" (October 24, 1974).
(7.) New York State, Senate Select Committee on Crime (July 7, 1980: 518); Robert Mongelli, I.S.A.
in New Jersey, Town of Wallkill, "Application for Garbage and Refuse Permit" (December 13, 1981,
January 16,1984); Joseph Mongelli, I.S.A. in New Jersey, Town of Wallkill, "Application for Garbage
and Refuse Permit" (1983).
(8.) See Vic Wehnan, Environmental Conservation officer, to David Archibald, New York State
Department of Environmental Conservation, Memorandum (May 12, 1980).
(9.) Robert A. Mongelli, Grace Disposal and Leasing, Ltd., New York State Department of
Environmental Conservation, "Application for the Operation of a Solid Waste Management Facility"
(February 18, 1978).
(10.) Robert Mongelli, Orange County Sanitation, Town of Wallkill, "Application for Garbage and
Refuse Permit" (December 22, 1980, December 17, 1981, 1983, January 16, 1984).
(11.) Joseph Mongelli, President, Round Lake Sanitation Corporation, "Application to Dispose of
Solid Waste at the Orange County Solid Waste Disposal Facilities" (August 2, 1974);
Robert Mongelli, Round Lake Sanitation Corporation, New York State Department of

Environmental Conservation, "Application for Septic Tank Cleaner and Industrial Waste Collector
Permit" (July 22, 1983).
(l2.) U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce
(December 16, 1980: 63-64).
(13.) See "The Tuxedo Story: A Report from Chairman Maurice D. Hinchey on Illegal Disposal of
Wastes in the Hudson Valley, Pre-Hearing Report of August 30, 1989" (p.4).
(14.) Ibid.: 3.
(15.) Gordon Bishop, Sunday Star-Ledger (April 8, 1979, Section 1:18).
(16.) See my testimony on S & W in "On the Need for the Waste Industry Disclosure Law"
(Pennsylvania House of Representatives, the Conservation Committee, Hearings on House
Bill 2228, The Waste Industry Disclosure Law, February 15, 1990).
(17.) Superior Court of New Jersey, Burlington County, State of New Jersey v. Christoper R. Grungo
et al., Defendants, Criminal Action XXVII, Law Division Docket No. SGJ-114-83-3, Burlington
County Courthouse, Mount Holly, New Jersey (April 22, 1985).
(18.) A few of the many investigations Hinchey conducted can be found in "A Public Hearing into the
Illegal Disposal of Wastes in the Hudson Valley" (September 19, 1989); "A Private Hearing into the
Involvement of Organized Crime in the Waste Disposal Industry" (September 6, 1989); "A Public
Hearing into the Illegal Disposal of Wastes and Landfill Problems in the Columbia County Area"
(March 14, 1990); and "Illegal Dumping in New York State: Who's Enforcing the Law?" (February 6,
1991).
(19.) See the report from Chairman Maurice D. Hinchey to the New York State Assembly Committee
on Environmental Conservation Concerning illegal Disposal of Wastes in the Hudson Valley
(February 6, 1991, Appendix C) for Sacco's arrest record, and "The Tuxedo Story," PreHearing
Report of August 30, 1989 (p. 7).
(20.) Ibid.: 53-54.
(21.) Ibid.: 6.
(22.) Author's interviews with FBI Special Agent Jerry W. Hanford, the coffee drinker, working out
of the Bureau's White Plains Office.
(23.) Lisa W. Foderaro, "New York Trash Haulers Charged with Bribery and Payoffs to Mob" (New
York Times, October 9,1991).
(24.) United States Attorney, Southern District of New York, "Outline of Indictment: United States of
America v, Mongelli" (Press Release, October 8, 1991).
(25.) U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on
Oversight and Investigations, Report: Hazardous Waste Enforcement (Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office, December 1982: 21).
(26.) Ibid.: 22.

(27.) Ibid.: 24.

(28.) United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, "Cumberland Farms. Inc.
et al. v. Browning-Ferris industries, inc. et al., Master File Civil Action No. 87-37 17, 120 F. R. D.
6421 1988 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7484; filed July 21, 1988.
(29.) United States District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Cumberland Farms, Inc., et al.,
Plaintiffs v. Browning Ferris Industries, Inc., et al., Defendants, Plaintiffs' Memorandum in
Opposition to Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment, Master File, No. 87-3717, page 1.
(30.) Ibid.: 53.
(31.) Ibid.: 2-3.
(32.) Ibid.: 6.
(33.) Ibid.: 7.
(34.) See, for example, Brian Larkin, "Probers Charge Bribes Opened Landfill's Gates," Staten Island
Advance (June 16, 1994:1).
(35.) United States District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, page 22.
(36.) Ibid.: 13.
(37.) Ibid.: 15.
(38.) Ibid.: 16.
(39.) Ibid.: 23.
(40.) Ibid.: 94.
(41.) Howard Smith, "Hidden Graves: Predatory Pricing and Organized Crime" (Ph.D. dissertation,
Pennsylvania State University, 1999: 107).
(42.) Larry Carpenter, Undersheriff, Ventura County, California, Sheriff's Department, "Waste
Management Report" (Attachment 4, September 20, 1991: 5).
(43.) J. Richard Shaner, "Cumberland Farms: Is It Changing Identities?" (National Petroleum News
80,11, October 1988: 66).
(44.) "Justice Department Sues Cumberland Farms for Wetlands Violations" (Business Wire, January
7, 1991).
(45.) Associated Press (August 20, 1991).
(46.) National Petroleum News (April 1993).
(47.) James Norman, "Goldman Wins $21 Mil Suit over Cumberland Theft" (Platt's Oilgram News
(75,98, May 21, 1997:1).

(48.) Peter Gullage, "Come-By-Chance Refinery Vows to Cut Emissions" (Platt's Oilgram News,
August 5, 1998).
(49.) Superior Court of the State of New York, County of New York, Robert M. Morgenthau, District
Attorney of New York County, Plaintiff-Claiming Authority, against Frank Alloca, VA Sanitation
Inc., et al., Order to Show Cause and Temporary Rest raining Order with Supporting Papers (CPLR
ART. 13-A), June 19, 1995.
(50.) Philip S. Angell, "Cleaning Up New York" (Infrastructure Finance, May 1, 1997).
(51.) Steve Daniels, "BFI Purchases Midsize New York City Hauler" (Waste News, March 17, 1997:
2).
(52.) "Houston-Based USA Waste Services to Acquire Waste Management" (Duluth News Tribune,
March 12, 1998).
(53.) Ibid.
(54.) Forbes (June 2, 1997).
(55.) Solid Waste Report (May 11, 1995).
(56.) "Waste Management Completes Eastern Deal" (Greenwire, January 4,1999).
(57.) See the Miami Herald and the Associated Press (January 1,1999).
(58.) Jim Roberts, "Investors Welcome Micro Warehouse, United Waste IPOs" (Fairfield County
Business Journal, December 28, 1992, Sec. 1:1).
(59.) Ibid.
(60.) State of Delaware, 1982 Annual Franchise Tax Report, Amerex Oil Associates, Inc., File
Number 8590-3 8, filed February 3, 1983.
(61.) "Corporate Facts: United Waste Systems Inc." (Hartford Courant, September 25, 1995,
Business Weekly Section: 4).
(62.) "Nigeria" (Platt's Oilgram News, February 28, 1983:3).
(63.) "Companies" (Oil and Gas Journal, March 7,1983:46).
(64.) Journal of Commerce (December 28, 1987).
(65.) "Saga Protests Benin Ouster: Creditors Losing $60 Million in Offshore Venture" (Platt's
Oilgram News, September 16, 1985: 1).
(66.) James Ridgeway, with Gaelle Drevet, "Dumping on Haiti: How Thousands of Tons of
Philadelphia's Toxic Waste Ended Up on a Haitian Beach and What the City of New York Is Doing
About It" (The Village Voice, January 13. 1998).
(67.) Ibid.

(68.) Ibid.
(69.) Ibid.
(70.) "Waste Management Lawsuit Alleges Fraud by Acquired Firm" (Philadelphia Inquirer, January
1,2000, at www.phillynews.com/inquirer/2000/Jan01/business/EASTERNo1.htm).
(71.) Ibid.
(72.) In a twist, BFI's fear of predatory pricing actually haunted its first attempt to enter the Greater
New York market. In Suffolk County, Long Island, three towns--Babylon, Huntington, and Islip-joined together in the 1970s to create the Multi-Town Solid Waste Authority. The goal was to
develop a resource-recovery facility. BR applied to construct the facility and made the short list in
1980. BFI's inclusion likely stemmed from the activities of Anthony A. Boccaccio, who was an
engineer with Grumman at the same time he worked in "public relations" for Multi-Town. The
Grumman connection was important, for Grumman's Energy Systems held the license for the
German VKW mass-burning technology system. Grumman decided to close down this division and
sold the license to BFI. The royalty agreement gave Grumman the right to receive a fixed
percentage on any contract BFI successfully negotiated using the license. Had this project
worked, Grumman would have earned over two million dollars. In 1982, Multi-Town selec ted BFI's
subsidiary, Energy Systems, to build the plant. The entire project was destroyed by political
corruption in various quarters, although it took Anthony Noto, who became a Babylon
Town supervisor in 1982, to finally do it in. Without bothering to notify anyone, Noto hired an
Albany firm with no prior experience to provide the technology for the plant. Noto failed at every
important task and made BFI "spend thousands of dollars in overtime for engineers, attorneys, and
accountants." There is no doubt that Long Island's organized crime carters were afraid of
BFI's reputation for predatory pricing, which they believed had just been employed in upstate New
York. They made sure it would not get any kind ofa stake on Long Island. State of New York,
Commission of Investigation, The Multi-Town Solid Waste Management Authority and the Crisis of
Solid Waste Management (270 Broadway, New York, NY, October 1984: 60, 73).
(73.) See Alan A. Block, "Into the Abyss of Environmental Policy: The Battle over the World's
Largest Commercial Hazardous Waste Incinerator Located in East Liverpool, Ohio" (Journal
of Human Justice, November 1993).
(74.) Richard Behar, "Talk About Tough Competition: How Bill Ruckelshaus Is Taking on the New
York Mob" (Fortune, January 15, 1996: 93).
(75.) Many other toxic waste polluting companies exist beyond those mentioned here. The oil
industry seems to breed them. Some important waste oil firms, fuel oil distributors, retail gas and
diesel station owners, and owners of fuel terminals have been major-league polluters. Many sell
product laced with flammable toxics, while others pollute through negligence or deliberately to
keep costs down. Additionally, ship-based oil pollution spreads a host of toxic chemicals. There
are some 100 to 200 identified carcinogens in every 10,000pounds of oil released into the oceans.
Spills have the immediate effect of killing waterfowl and mammals. Even more insidiously
dangerous, the carcinogens disrupt the food chain because oil pollution kills the
coastal phytoplankton that feed commercial fish, thereby causing a reduction on in harvests. The
organisms that survive "introduce the oil toxins into the food chain as they are consumed." See Paul
S. Dempsey, "Compliance and Enforcement in Environmental Law: Oil Pollution of the Marine
Environment by Ocean Vessels" (New Journal of International Law and Business 6, 1984: 459460).

Cruise ships are notorious oil polluters. Their crimes were uncovered this decade. In 1994, the U.S.
Coast Guard detected a huge oil slick trailing after the world's largest cruise ship,
Royal Caribbean's Sovereign of the Seas. A four-year investigation determined "a fleet-wide
conspiracy within Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. to save millions of dollars by dumping oily wastes
into the sea" (Ibid.). Even after Royal Caribbean paid a nine million dollar fine in June 1998 and
said it would never happen again, it did happen one month later. Royal Caribbean's Nordic Empress
dumped oily wastes and attempted to hide the fact by creating false records. To defend itself, Royal
Caribbean's lawyers boldly claimed, "a private company doing business in the United States was
immune from criminal prosecution because its ships fly foreign flags" (Douglas Franz, "Gaps in Sea
Laws Shield Pollution by Cruise Lines," New York Times, January 3, 1999: 1). Royal Caribbean's
ships are registered in Liberia. Helping Royal Caribbean make this case were former U.S. Attorneys
General Benjamin R. Civiletti and Elliot L. Richardson, Royal Caribbean also took on board William
K. Reilly, a former head of the Environmental Protection Agency. He was hired, Royal Caribbean
said with a straight face, to help implement a new environmental compl iance program (Ibid.).
Civiletti and Richardson should have been chagrined when the Nordic Express discharge
was discovered, as it followed their courtroom performances in defense of Liberian registry
(Ibid.).
ALAN BLOCK is Professor of Jewish Studies and Administration of Justice, Pennsylvania State
University, 103 Weaver Bldg., University Park, PA 16802 (e-mail: aab5@psu.edu).
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Environmental+crime+and+pollution:+wasteful+reflections+(1).-a0
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