14 Held in Recycling Fraud Case. Cali/Mexico scam.

LA TIMES ^ | October 23, 2002 | By Virginia Ellis, Times Staff Writer

[dennisw]

 

 

 

Excerpts below:

14 Held in Recycling Fraud Case

The ring made millions redeeming bottles and cans from Mexico, other states in California, authorities say.

By Virginia Ellis, Times Staff Writer

SACRAMENTO -- It was a crime ring straight out of the Hollywood mold -- fast cars, furtive trips across the border, the latest cell-phone technology, police lookouts and a haul estimated at more than $3 million. Only the payload was mundane: discarded bottles and cans.

After a yearlong investigation, law enforcement officers have arrested 14 people accused of defrauding the state's recycling program of millions of dollars by hauling bottles and cans from Mexico and neighboring states and redeeming them in Los Angeles..............................


The profit could be substantial. Discarded aluminum cans in Nevada, Arizona and Utah could be had for about $950 a ton and then sold in California for about $2,490 a ton. Plastic bottles netted even higher profits, selling for $90 a ton out of state and bringing in $910 in California.

The arrests were made by the California attorney general's Bureau of Investigations as part of a probe that involved 10 law enforcement offices and stretched to four states and Mexico.................................


Among those arrested was Migran Changulyan, 35, an unemployed truck dispatcher from Glendale who Callaghan said is believed to be the ringleader.

Changulyan and two others also were accused of collecting welfare while they took millions from the recycling program and used it to buy the accouterments of a middle-class lifestyle -- cars and homes.

"We found one defendant ... and his wife ... had been collecting welfare for 15 years while they owned a home, cars and a recycling business," Callaghan said..............................

Callaghan said Changulyan was identified early as the ringleader of the operation, but it took months of surveillance and investigation to determine how he operated and who else was involved..........................


She said lookouts would be used to search the sky for police helicopters. Cars parked near recycling centers would be checked for police insignia. Ring leaders who thought they were being followed would make quick turns or pull over and abandon their vehicles.............................

 

[homeschool mama]

I'll check into that--thank you for your source. My husband is in the recycling industry...I've emailed him about this...but he's out on an audit and won't be able to check figures for a few days.

[Great Dane]

#19........ All I am saying is, if it's worth stealing to make money on, why is it not making money for professional recyclers. ?

By the way, we are great recyclers, only have one garbage bag every 4-5 weeks, we have 4 composters and a green cone.

[Rocksalt]

Here in my neck of the woods,there are private companys who have the garbage trucks dump the trash in their yard,and then a bunch of guys in space suits pull all the stuff worth money like aluminum,cardboard and such out and they sell them.They have been operating for many years.Funny too,they set up this operation right next to the county landfill,and I'm sure the county loses revenue due to this.

[lmr]

What you are describing is something called a "Dirty Murf", this is the system of recycling we are proposing.

[Rodney King]

First of all, this is not that ingenious, and Kramer and Newman on Seinfield attempted a similar scam by trying to take their NY cans and redeem them in MI where they go for 10 cents, rather than NY's 5.

Personally, I don't have a problem with this, except that they were taking welfare checks while doing it.

[Rodney King]

Should read: First of all, this is not that ingenious, as Kramer and Newman...

[berkeleybeej]

I hope the Berkeley recyclers are investigated.

BTW - supposedly this California recycling setup doesn't cost the taxpayer ANYTHING (ha). Consumers pay a deposit at the time of purchase that is supposed to go into the recycling payback fund. The only way it would cost taxpayers is if more containers are redeemed than were sold.

It would be interesting to see what percentage of containers sold in California are being redeemed?

[dennisw]

Personally, I don't have a problem with this, except that they were taking welfare checks while doing it.
....................

It sure seems that Cali has a problem with it.

[Rocksalt]

Dirty Murf? I got a laugh out of that name.Why's it called that?

[Rocksalt]

I see from the article these folks were cashing in the cans and bottles by weight.I'm sure the reason they were able to get away with this was because the loads came in in trucks and the bottles were not scruntinized closely.In my state aluminum cans are worth 5 cents,and they have to be counted and sorted to get any money out of them.Obviously the system of redeeming the value by weight opens up alot of opportunitys for fraud.In my state they would have gotten aluminum scrap weight for the cans-alot less. Bottles are worth virtually nothing here.