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Estonians find stolen Czech carbon credits

03 February 2011, 17:33 CET
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(TALLINN) - Estonian authorities have found carbon credits stolen from the Czech Republic on an Estonian registry listed as belonging to non-Estonian nationals, an Estonian official said Thursday.

"We are not disclosing the identity of the individuals, but can confirm that they are not Estonian citizens," Pavel Ivanov, spokesman for the Estonian Environment Ministry, told AFP Thursday.

"At the moment we also don't know whether these foreign individuals knew at all they had made a deal for stolen carbon credits, the investigation will determine this," he added. "We have forwarded all relevant data to the Europol."

Europol is probing the cyber-theft of carbon credits in January from the national systems of EU states Austria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece and Poland.

The European police body has not ruled out that organised crime might be involved.

Trading in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) was frozen January 19 after computer hackers stole two million certificates worth millions of euros from the registries of the five countries.

Last week, Czech authorities said they had identified nearly 1.306 million stolen carbon allowances in Britain, Germany and Estonia. Prague has requested the European Commission prevent the credits re-entering the carbon market.

The ETS allows around 12,000 companies including huge multinationals to buy and sell rights to pump industrial gases into the atmosphere.

Issued free of charge by national EU governments, the certificates are currently worth some 14 euros each. Each credit equates to one tonne of emissions.

Europe will partially reopen its carbon credit market Friday after national registries in Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Slovakia were cleared by the European Commission Thursday. The market will remain closed in the EU's 22 other member states.

Estonia hopes to reopen trading on its registry next week, after approval of security tests by the European Commission, a senior Estonian official said Thursday.


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