Greenpeace accuses the oil and metal trading company Trafigura of bribing witnesses and falsifying documents.

The Swiss-based company was involved in the dumping of highly toxic waste in the Ivory Coast’s main city Abidjan in 2006. Seventeen local people allegedly died and thousands became ill as a result. The truck drivers who dumped the waste now say they were bribed to make false statements. Trafigura denies all the accusations.

"Drivers of death" was the name given to the truck drivers who in 2006 transported the highly toxic waste from the tanker Probo Koala to various sites around Abidjan, creating an enormous stench. The drivers claimed they did not know the waste was toxic and actually handled it themselves. They dumped it in a panic when they realised how hazardous it was and then went into hiding for fear of retribution by the local population.
 
Probo Koala
The Trafigura-hired tanker had made previous unsuccessful attempts to dispose of its waste in Amsterdam and Estonia. Although the company has persistently denied that the waste was extremely toxic, it eventually agreed to pay damages to the victims in 2009.
 
The drivers who dumped the waste now say they were approached by Trafigura’s lawyers and asked to sign false statements. They were persuaded to lie about the nature of the waste and to deny they had suffered health problems.
 
“There are some sentences in the declaration that are not true, they are lies,” says one of the drivers who was approached by Trafigura.
 
The drivers say they each received 650 euros in exchange for signing the false statements. They were told that the statements would be used in the London court case Trafigura was fighting against the Ivorian victims.
 
Confession
Five months ago, the drivers sought contact with Greenpeace at a secret location in Africa and confessed their story. The environmental organisation has now launched legal proceedings in the Dutch courts on charges of influencing witnesses and falsifying documents. Prosecution is possible as Trafigura is registered in the Netherlands.
 
Greenpeace is well aware that these same drivers previously told lies in the very same case. But the organisation believes that the accusations are serious enough to warrant investigation. Marietta Harjono of Greenpeace says:
 
“There is a long-term pattern of influencing witnesses and influencing people in order to obtain false statements with the aim of using them in court. And that is against the law.”
 
The drivers say they were approached a second time by Trafigura, this time to sign a statement that they had never received money from the company. They claim to have received 2,300 euros each for the second statement.
 
Blackmail
The news was made public by Greenpeace in cooperation with the Dutch daily newspaper de Volkskrant and the TV programme Nova. The company has issued a written response denying that it ever paid people to make false statements.
 
However, Trafigura does concede that it has been in touch with the drivers and that they were paid a sum of 2,300 euros in April of this year. The company insists this amount was paid so that the drivers would reveal their identities, thereby safeguarding the company against possible threats of blackmail.