A GROUP of Spanish businessmen has been sentenced to four years in jail after burying a million tonnes of untreated waste beneath Costa Blanca farmland.
Named as Angel Javier Fenoll Pastor, Francisco Poveda Poveda, Francisco Fenoll Perez and Javier Bru Garcia, the men were also ordered to pay fines of €6 a day for 20 months – around €3,600 each.
The Alicante Provincial Court, based in Elche, heard the huge environmental crime took place between 2005 and 2011 at a former quarry in La Murada, a district of Orihuela.
The group turned the site into an illegal landfill, accepting vast quantities of household and construction waste without the permits or treatment required by law.
According to the ruling, the defendants operated the site as a highly profitable business while deliberately flouting environmental regulations.
The court also found citrus trees were planted over the waste near La Murada to disguise more than a decade of illegal dumping.
Experts warned the scale of the dumping could have long-lasting consequences for local agriculture and underground water supplies.
The case has become one of the biggest environmental crime convictions seen in the Vega Baja region in recent years.
La Murada lies inland from Orihuela and is surrounded by farmland that produces citrus fruits and other crops sold across Spain and Europe.
The sentence is not yet final and can still be appealed before Spain’s Supreme Court.
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