International textile waste trafficking: thousands of tonnes illegally shipped from Italy discovered
A joint operation by the European Anti-Fraud Office, the Carabinieri and Turkish customs authorities has resulted in the seizure of enormous quantities of textile waste. The materials, which departed from Italy, had been incorrectly labelled to circumvent environmental regulations.
International textile waste trafficking: thousands of tonnes illegally shipped from Italy discovered
A cross-border investigation has shed light on an illicit network for the exportation of textile waste that originated in Italy and reached Turkey. The operation was conducted by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) together with the Carabinieri and the customs authorities of the destination country.
The transported materials contained high percentages of acrylic fibres, substances that take up to two centuries to degrade in the environment and require particularly complex and costly recovery technologies. Through examination of commercial data and customs records, investigators identified numerous shipments bearing false documentation, with the aim of evading the more costly treatment requirements.
Following close cooperation with Turkish customs, suspicious containers were inspected upon arrival at their destination. It emerged that approximately 4,200 tonnes of textile waste had been illegally sent from Italian territory to Turkey.
Subsequently, an inspection was carried out directly at the storage location, with the participation of OLAF officials, personnel from the Italian Carabinieri and technicians from the Tuscan Regional Agency for Environmental Protection. Inside a warehouse belonging to a Turkish recycling facility, operated in violation of environmental regulations in force in the country, nearly 2,100 tonnes of accumulated textiles were found. Information gathered by the Anti-Fraud Office also made it possible to locate a further 768 tonnes of waste of Italian origin, connected to the same criminal network, deposited at the port of Mersin and ready to be illegally disposed of. Turkish authorities have seized all materials.
OLAF's Director General, Petr Klement, highlighted that such mechanisms offer criminal networks the opportunity to profit whilst evading recovery costs and environmental regulations. He also emphasised the importance of his office's role in tracking shipments and cooperating with national bodies to identify and confiscate waste, contributing to the dismantling of the responsible organisations.
The investigation also enabled the Carabinieri to carry out a raid in Brescia, Lombardia, at an industrial facility connected to a company involved in irregular exports. As part of the operation, production plants, a fleet of articulated lorries used unlawfully for transport and financial sums totalling approximately 12 million euros were confiscated.
The textile and apparel sector of the European Union represents a significant economic pillar, having recorded a turnover of 170 billion euros in 2023 and providing employment to 1.3 million people at nearly 200,000 enterprises. At the same time, the disposal of waste from this sector proves extremely complicated and costly: in 2019, 12.6 million tonnes were produced, but only 20 per cent of this was sent for separate collection for reuse or recycling.
To address these challenges, the European Commission issued new regulations on sustainable textile waste management in October 2025. The newly introduced rules make a clear distinction between used clothing and actual waste, establishing that all separately collected textiles should be considered as such. Each Member State is required to ensure that such materials undergo sorting procedures before any shipments abroad, thus preventing waste from being passed off as reusable goods.
Products not subjected to such sorting fall instead under a different regulatory framework, the Waste Shipment Regulation, which also strengthens OLAF's mandate to support Member States' investigations into illicit waste trafficking.
Source: European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF)
Source: Google News UK — Crime (en)