The Civil Guard, within the framework of Operation "DILANIO," is investigating a network of scrapyards with headquarters on the islands of Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, and Lanzarote, which, in collaboration with a scrapyard in the Community of Madrid, falsified environmental certificates to conceal the irregular management of hundreds of heavy-tonnage vehicles belonging to a major transport company. The operation has resulted in the closure of three clandestine scrapyards and the investigation of eight individuals and three legal entities for alleged continuous offenses against the environment and document forgery.
The initial investigations began when the SEPRONA of Las Palmas detected an unauthorized facility dedicated to the illicit management of waste on protected rural land. Inside, 44 heavy-duty vehicles were found, both complete and partially dismantled, originating from legally established scrapyards with which commercial agreements were maintained. The deregistration procedures for these vehicles were formally managed through these scrapyards, which allowed the irregular origin of the operations to be masked.
As the investigation progressed, agents found that a transport company had delivered more than 240 large vehicles to a scrapyard located in Madrid with the aim of deregistering them and subsequently treating them environmentally. However, said establishment resold them as scrap metal, obtaining significant economic benefits and diverting the vehicles to other scrapyards in the province of Las Palmas, where the necessary environmental certificates to prove their correct management were falsified.
As a result of the operation, two clandestine scrapyards were shut down and a third was in the process of being shut down, all of them located on protected rural land covering an area of over 40,000 square meters. These facilities operated under the guise of authorized scrapyards located in industrial areas, which issued falsified documentation while some of the vehicles were transferred without decontamination or only partially treated
SEPRONA has also confirmed that the investigated activities involved the release of fluorinated gases into the atmosphere during the dismantling of vehicles, without any technical control. It is estimated that more than 10,000 vehicles were handled in this way over the last four years, generating emissions equivalent to approximately 1,500 tons of CO2. The Civil Guard has taken numerous samples and prepared expert reports that reinforce the severity of the environmental impact caused.
With this operation, the Civil Guard reiterates its commitment to environmental protection and the detection of illicit activities that jeopardize the ecological security and sustainability of the islands' natural environment.