DENVER -- The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has charged two executives of a Denver-based electronics recycling firm with multiple counts of illegal e-waste exportation.

The culmination of the 30-month investigation of Executive Recycling Inc. marks the first instance that criminal charges have been brought against an e-waste exporter.

According to the federal grand jury indictment, Executive Recycling was responsible for at least 300 exports, including shipments of more than 100,000 toxic cathode ray tubes that netted the company $1.8 million. ERI CEO Brandon Richter and vice president of operations Tor Olson were indicted on 16 separate counts including wire and mail fraud, environmental crimes, exportation contrary to law, and destruction, alteration, or falsification of records.

Claims against the company date to 2007, when the firm was tracked allegedly shipping nearly two dozen containers from the US to sites across the world, most in China.

"This is a major victory for global environmental justice,” said Jim Puckett, executive director of Basel Action Network, an NGO whose aim is to stem e-waste dumping. “Even before we have a US law in place to explicitly prohibit this dumping on developing countries, the US government’s criminal justice system has recognized the massive toxic trade we first discovered in 2001 as fraudulent, as smuggling, and as an environmental crime. Now these sham recyclers are warned: their shameful practices can land them in jail.”

Legislation proposed in the US House of Representatives and Senate would prohibit the export of toxic electronics waste to developing countries. Such an export prohibition already exists in Europe.

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