| © ICIS HEREN - Organised crime agency investigating EUA theft |
| 2010-12-15 |
| The theft of 1.6m EU allowances (EUAs) from a Romanian account is being investigated by the country`s organised crime and terrorism bureau DIICOT, the emissions registry has said. Its British counterpart, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), is already working with international partners investigating EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) cybercrime, it confirmed to ICIS Heren on Wednesday (15th December). Holcim, the cement company from which the allowances were stolen a month ago, said it has now traced and had returned 0.6m EUAs. An updated list of which EUAs are still missing is on the company`s website. The statement from the Romanian registry is the first it has made since the public was made aware of the allowance theft (see EDCM 30 November 2010). It said the breach in security lay with the account holder and not with the registry itself. However, on being made aware of the situation it informed the international transaction log (ITL) and its European counterpart, the community independent transaction log (CITL). A criminal investigation was then referred to DIICOT. Link to the UK Last weekend, a number of emissions registries abruptly closed, having been told by their respective national security police forces that they were under threat of an attack (see EDCM 13 December 2010). In a number of cases, SOCA was cited as the source of the information. On Wednesday, a spokesman for the agency said: "SOCA works with the private sector on an ongoing basis to help prevent serious organised crime, and mitigate its effects. Linked to this, and to SOCA`s efforts to make cybercrime more difficult to commit, we collaborate with a range of national and international partners to share information and raise awareness of potential criminal threats to the ETS." Holcim has said that 1m of the 1.6m EUAs stolen were transferred to an account in Liechtenstein. The remaining 0.6m were transferred to an account in the Italian registry, opened by individuals with Italian and UK addresses. Some of these EUAs were then moved on to registries in the UK, France and the Czech Republic. (THE ICIS HEREN REPORTS - EDCM 5.343 / 15 December 2010) |
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