Cap and Trade: Organized Crime’s Best Friend
Posted August 20th, 2009 at 12:29pm in Energy and Environment 
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Reuters reports:
The British tax office arrested seven people in London on Wednesday in a suspected 38 million pounds ($62.6 million) value-added tax fraud in the European market in carbon allowances, it said. … “Those arrested are believed to be part of an organized crime group operating a network of companies trading large volumes of high-value carbon credits,” it said.
The Financial Times adds:
Anand Doobay, a partner at Peters & Peters, a City-based law firm specialising in financial crime, said the ethereal nature of the fast-expanding multi-billion dollar international market in carbon credits had made them an attractive target for graft: “There is an increasing amount of fraud connected with them as a commodity. It’s trading with something that’s intangible, and that isn’t regulated in the way some other commodities are.”
Since carbon credits are a completely intangible unlike every other real commodity on the planet, cap and trade has afforded organized crime a new avenue to defraud taxpayers and other unsuspecting victims. Now where have we heard people predict exactly that would happen?
Carbon Trading Is an Invitation to Fraud
Why Should the U.S. Embrace Failure?
Lies Environmentalists Tell
The Fraud at the Core of Cap and Trade
Cap and Trade’s Inevitable Central Planning Conclusion
The Fraud behind Carbon Reduction Targets
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17 Responses to “Cap and Trade: Organized Crime’s Best Friend”
Rmoen, Reno, NV on August 20th, 2009 at 12:29pm said:
Thanks for the article. Have you heard anything similar with RECs (renewable energy certificates) now trading in the US. As states and possibly the US government pass more renewable portfolio standard laws RECs are becoming more important daily.
– Robert Moen, http://www.energyplanUSA.com
gofer on August 20th, 2009 at 12:29pm said:
Air is kinda hard to trace and keep track of since it’s never in the same place. I’ve would have never believed the govt. would actually figure out a way to tax air. It’s the most enraging thing that I’ve ever experienced. These people are crazy!
joe, new york on August 20th, 2009 at 12:29pm said:
I think you are drawing an incredibly unfair comparison here while attempting to vilify cap-and-trade as unique in being exposed to fraudulent activity. Any new commodities market or financial market in general (like, say, the MBS market) can be exposed to this type of activity while regulatory bodies learn best practice for imposing oversight. I may also remind you that cap-and-trade has existed for NOx & SO2 (so your claim that carbon credits are “unlike every other real commodity on the planet” is false) in the United States for over a decade and has been very successful and fraud free. Backing up your claims with fact next time might help strengthen your argument.
Linda Carlsbad, CA on August 20th, 2009 at 12:29pm said:
You must be kidding, our government is so bent on us having cap & trade, why? They have already made deals with their big supporters. They will all get richer over us being taxed to death.This whole cap & trade is a joke. It is another way to control the American People! After they impose so much on us, where are the takes going to come from, we won’t have to pay taxes, you don’t pay taxes if you have no income! Of course Chicago Politics aren’t being played in our country!
Dave Chelsea, MI on August 20th, 2009 at 12:29pm said:
Hey, Joe —- Read the versions of Cap & Trade currently being debated. Then, after having read them, detail to all copied herein how well you think the Government is going to do ensuring proper oversight, and whether or not you think the moneychanges will benefit from this approach to taxing energy…..with no material impact to GHGs……
Lebo, florida on August 20th, 2009 at 12:29pm said:
God, what a bunch of Sheep we have collectively become.
Is there anyone left on this planet capable of critical thought?
As Liddy used to say; “O ye Suckers.”
Let me know how that “Change you could believe in” is working out for you.
Can you spell “Banana Republic”? Better learn how cause we are living there now.
Does anybody inside the beltway really believe in any of this chit they are pushing down our throats?
YGTBSM
LOL
CJ Oakwood IL on August 20th, 2009 at 12:29pm said:
THe obama support of C and T suprises anyone?????????? He is from Chicago!!!!!!!!!!!! Where corruption and organized crime has been perfected!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This administration makes the Clinton group look like First Graders!
Char, Oklahoma on August 20th, 2009 at 12:29pm said:
Cap and Trade sounds perfect for all the Chicago Hoodlums Obama has brought with him to Chicago!
Tim Az on August 20th, 2009 at 12:29pm said:
Cap and Trade is the perfect example of the CHicago Way. The Gangsters have taken over DC.
Ed -Virginia on August 20th, 2009 at 12:29pm said:
“CAP & TRADE” ????
Hell, back in 1990, the Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it. They failed and it closed. Now we are trusting the economy of our country, our banking system, our auto industry and possibly our very air we breathe plus health plans to the same nit-wits who couldn’t make money running a ___ and selling whiskey!”
Diana Graham, Miami FL on August 20th, 2009 at 12:29pm said:
Carbon trading IS fraud! Let’s face it it is trading in n o t h i n g.
I now understand the fairy tale “The Emporer’s New Clothes” in an entirely different way.
Lynn B. DeSpain on August 20th, 2009 at 12:29pm said:
If it has to do with Crime, if it has to do with Dictators, if it has to do with Socialism, if it has to do with Fascism, then Obama is your man!
Hozro
Ray Anderson on August 20th, 2009 at 12:29pm said:
As a farmer one would assume I would be in a good position on carbon credits, but watch them tack a portion of the manufactoring costs on me. No one will be exempt.
JAS, Atlanta on August 20th, 2009 at 12:29pm said:
Madoff is sorry he didn’t think of this scheme first. Too bad the taxpayers will have to pay for the carbon-credit derivative trades, and still have to breathe the same amount of CO2.
George Buss, Bowie MD on August 20th, 2009 at 12:29pm said:
This cap and tax is somewhat interesting. The POTUS is even now out on Marthas Vineyard receiving his instructions on how to take the next step ie ramp up the war in the middle east into worldwide general conflict required to bring the USA out of the ‘recession’.
Interglacial John on August 20th, 2009 at 12:29pm said:
this entire global warming claim is a scam. anyone surprised that criminals are involved needs to read more. the ministry of disinformation has been very busy and is growing daily.
AMT on August 20th, 2009 at 12:29pm said:
I’m just waiting for the government to start taxing the ocean because it releases, by far the most CO2. I still can’t believe there are people that believe a natural gas is a pollutant! If it were not for CO2 we, and all plant life would be dead. Maybe the next pollutant will be water.