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Crime Earth

Criminal Charges Announced Over Multi-Year Fraud Scheme in a Carbon Credits Market (marketwatch.com) 52

Posted by EditorDavid from the up-in-smoke dept.
This week the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York unsealed charges over a "scheme to commit fraud" in carbon markets, which they say fraudulently netted one company "tens of millions of dollars" worth of credits — which led to "securing an investment of over $100 million."

MarketWatch reports: Ken Newcombe had spent years building a program to distribute more environmentally friendly cookstoves for free to rural communities in Africa and Southeast Asia. The benefit for his company, C-Quest Capital, would be the carbon credits it would receive in exchange for reducing the amount of fuel people burned in order to cook food — credits the company could then sell for a profit to big oil companies like BP.

But when Newcombe tried to ramp up the program, federal prosecutors said in an indictment made public Wednesday, he quickly realized that the stoves wouldn't deliver the emissions savings he had promised investors. Rather than admit his mistake, he and his partners cooked the books instead, prosecutors said... That allowed them to obtain carbon credits worth tens of millions of dollars that they didn't deserve, prosecutors said. On the basis of the fraudulently gained credits, prosecutors said, C-Quest was able to secure $250 million in funding from an outside investor.

"The alleged actions of the defendants and their co-conspirators risked undermining the integrity of [the global market for carbon credits], which is an important part of the fight against climate change," said Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
From announced by the U.S. Attorney's Office: U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said... "The alleged actions of the defendants and their co-conspirators risked undermining the integrity of that market, which is an important part of the fight against climate change. Protecting the sanctity and integrity of the financial markets continues to be a cornerstone initiative for this Office, and we will continue to be vigilant in rooting out fraud in the market for carbon credits...."

While most carbon credits are created through, and trade in compliance markets, there is also a voluntary carbon market. Voluntary markets revolve around companies and entities that voluntarily set goals to reduce or offset their carbon emissions, often to align with goals from employees or shareholders. In voluntary markets, the credits are issued by non-governmental organizations, using standards for measuring emission reductions that they develop based on input from market participants, rather than on mandates from governments. The non-governmental organizations issue voluntary carbon credits to project developers that run projects that reduce emissions or remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

CQC was a for-profit company that ran projects to generate carbon credits — including a type of credit known as a voluntary carbon unit ("VCU") — by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. CQC profited by selling VCUs it obtained, often to companies seeking to offset the impact of greenhouse gases they emit in the course of operating their businesses.
The company itself was not charged due to "voluntary and timely self-disclosure of misconduct," according to the announcement, along with "full and proactive cooperation, timely and appropriate remediation, and agreement to cancel or void certain voluntary carbon units.
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Criminal Charges Announced Over Multi-Year Fraud Scheme in a Carbon Credits Market More

Criminal Charges Announced Over Multi-Year Fraud Scheme in a Carbon Credits Market

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  • What?!?! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DrMrLordX ( 559371 ) on Saturday October 05, 2024 @02:37PM (#64842363)

    Fraudulent carbon credit programs? You don't say!

  • Like that Old Comic Says . . . (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kunedog ( 1033226 ) on Saturday October 05, 2024 @02:49PM (#64842391)
    . . . "What if we make a worse world at great cost?"

    Good thing that it wasn't mere one-sided, disingenuous propaganda, eh?
  • Color me surprised. /s

    • Carbon credits aren't a fraud, they are an economic tool to transfer money. People selling carbon credits are a fraud.

  • Expected (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Retired Chemist ( 5039029 ) on Saturday October 05, 2024 @03:06PM (#64842415)
    If you make a system that allows someone to sell something that has no physical existence and do not create a system that audits it in real time, someone will game the system. The real question is why we allow people to buy and sell carbon credits, rather than actually reduce their emissions.

    • The real question is why we allow people to buy and sell carbon credits, rather than actually reduce their emissions.

      Because they fucking lobbied for it. The real question is, did you lobby otherwise?

      I didn’t think so.

      • The real question is why we allow people to buy and sell carbon credits, rather than actually reduce their emissions.

        Because they fucking lobbied for it. The real question is, did you lobby otherwise?

        I didn’t think so.

        Here’s the hilarious thing in all this, they are bought off cheap, a 200+ year old democracy with the most powerful arsenal in the world for a motor coach (NOT RV he was VERY adamant) here or booking floors of expensive hotels where no guests show up or fake watches for $100k. If somehow we the people banded together and bought off politicians, we could massively swing the country back to represent citizens first instead of rich entities, or at the very least up the ante on how much it costs.

        • If somehow we the people banded together and bought off politicians

          You do that with your votes

          we could massively swing the country back to represent citizens first instead of rich entities

          It sounds like you're saying one or the other instead of both. The US constitution was designed such that there are checks and balances to prevent one entity or group of entities from overpowering another. To ask otherwise is to believe there can be a world where all people are not equal, but identical.

          • Those checks and balances are failing. They're meant to stop one branch from overpowering the other. They don't stop two from overpowering one. A couple billionaire conservatives have managed to stack the Judicial branch with buddies from their law club. Conservatives can now go judge hopping to get the rulings they want to get. It's not perfect, but it doesn't need to be. When one side plays dirty and the other tries to be fair, the dirty side always wins in the medium term. Life isn't a movie.

            The s

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by ArmoredDragon ( 3450605 )

        Carbon credits totally make sense to these assholes. They know they're fucking worthless, that's the whole point. It's not about solving any particular problem, it's about giving the illusion of it so you can claim a moral high ground. Part of the broader progressive "do as I say, not as a I do" mentality. They want to feel justified while they shame other people for doing the exact same shit that they themselves are some of the worst offenders of. Better known as virtue signaling. Note the distinction from

    • If you make a system that allows someone to sell something that has no physical existence and do not create a system that audits it in real time, someone will game the system. The real question is why we allow people to buy and sell carbon credits, rather than actually reduce their emissions.

      Precisely why emissions should be checked on regular time periods by satellite and everything put up in a transparent database. Credits for things like “development X was never implemented so give me credits” when it never was going to exist in the first place just shouldn’t even be an option. These things can indeed be done well, but it’s so badly botched im just uncertain if it’s somewhat criminal but also incompetence or if it’s pure criminal activity effectively le

    • Re:Expected (Score:5, Interesting)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday October 05, 2024 @05:35PM (#64842617)

      The real question is why we allow people to buy and sell carbon credits, rather than actually reduce their emissions.

      Because not all processes have emissions which are reducible, and because the expertise to build systems to combat climate change may not lie within the companies who produce emissions. It's a system that prices carbon while (in theory) funding alternate means of addressing it, by moving money from those people who externalise costs, to those people who attempt to minimise those external costs.

      In economic terms carbon credits are a really good system. If technology catches up (it won't) in a way to extract carbon from the atmosphere then it's a very real way we can force polluters to directly fund their own clean-up.

      Unfortunately the people doing the selling of the credits are mostly fraudsters, and the idea of selling you a tree that wasn't going to get cut down with the promise that it now still won't get cut down should result in everyone going to federal prison and sharing a cell with someone who has an impressively sized cock.

      • Because not all processes have emissions which are reducible,

        Which processes are those? In fact, I can't think of a process where if you stop it, the emissions don't stop.

        What the carbon market does is monetize emissions so those with money don't need to reduce them. Bill Gates can claim to be "carbon neutral" whle flying around for mansion to mansion in a private jet. After all there is no way to reduce emissions from the process of flying a jet and heating large homes.

        • In fact, I can't think of a process where if you stop it, the emissions don't stop.

          When you are a company that sells a legal product and have customers lining up to buy the product, why would you stop? When you have built an economy that is wholly reliant on that product can you even stop?

          What are your answers? Stop airtravel period? Stop international shipping? Cease making a large number of petroleum based products that our lives currently depend on? I mean everyone replacing their ICE vehicles with EVs won't curb the need for refined oil products, what is a refinery to do?

          What about yo

          • What are your answers? Stop airtravel period? Instead of stopping it only for people who can't afford to pay the additional carbon tax? I think that pretty much summarizes the idea of carbon pricing. It allows people with wealth to buy their way out. And frankly, its a failed strategy. Because the bulk of emissions are created to benefit the people who have the bulk of the wealth. We aren't going to get them to reduce their emissions by raising the price without economically crushing everyone else. If then

            • To be clear. Bill Gates enormous wealth was built on an enormous amount of emissions that are still in the atmosphere. He is sitting on a huge emissions deficit claiming ownership of any reductions he pays for while denying ownership of the huge emissions deficit his wealth represents. Its the rest of us who have to pay to deal with the problems that pile of emissions creates. He's now "carbon neutral".

              Unfortunately its not just BIll Gates or a few billionaires. That we might deal with. But if you look aro

              • To be clear. Bill Gates enormous wealth was built on an enormous amount of emissions that are still in the atmosphere. He is sitting on a huge emissions deficit claiming ownership

                Irrelevant. The past is the past. It doesn't serve anyone to point fingers in that direction. If you did, you'll find the largest fingers on the entire planet are pointed to America, a country which not only continues to have exceptionally high emissions per capita (yes you, you privileged westerner - and me too), but has a carbon deficit that is unsurpassed by anyone and will remain in history the dirtiest rise to an economic powerhouse bar none (China is rising on a small fraction of the lifetime emission

                • Irrelevant. The past is the past. It doesn't serve anyone to point fingers in that direction.

                  No, those emissions from his wealth aren't past. They are still creating climate change and will be for a very long time..

                  Gates claims to be "carbon neutral"while generating a huge amount of new emissions. He does that by using his wealth to pay someone else to take responsibility for those emissions. He claims that gives him "ownership" of the reductions that would exist whether he flew in his private jet or not. He ought consider them offsets for all his existing wealth before he trades that wealth with

            • Instead of stopping it only for people who can't afford to pay the additional carbon tax? I think that pretty much summarizes the idea of carbon pricing.

              This is carbon pricing. It's just an economic open market version of it rather than a government collecting a tax.

              It allows people with wealth to buy their way out. And frankly, its a failed strategy.

              This is a false dichotomy. You can't solve climate change by stopping the rich because fundamentally the activities which generate the carbon are tied to GDP.

              3. We make private passenger jets illegal. Bill Gates flies commercial or, more likely, doesn't fly at all.

              You missed half of my sentence. Making private jets illegal doesn't stop rich people from flying. (By the way I'm all for this idea, private jets are a scourge on society).

              4. We make all commercial passenger jets illegal.

              And we're back to my point. You've just come up with a stupid sugges

              • This is carbon pricing. It's just an economic open market version of it rather than a government collecting a tax.

                Exactly. Its an ideologically driven solution that doesn't actually work.

                You can't solve climate change by stopping the rich because fundamentally the activities which generate the carbon are tied to GDP.

                And GDP measures activity that is fundamentally tied to their wealth and vice versa. Which means you can't change emissions without stopping the rich. They are rich because they are the ultimate repositories of the results for most of the activity that determines the GDP and creates missions.

                You've just come up with a stupid suggestion that destroys a concept which has massively accelerated globalism. The world is bigger than the island you live on. We don't have bridges across the atlantic or the pacific.

                Which confirms my point.We all support preventing climate change but not by actually changing our behavior. Globalization is too important to sacr

              • This is solving climate change on easy mode. The problem is easy mode is also incredibly stupid.

                If you think banning commercial airline travel is "easy" you live in a different world than I do. I guess in your world solutions to problems are intellectual puzzles any only difficult if they are hard to solve intellectually.

                Let me suggest another "easy" solution. An 80% tax on all wealth over 1 million dollars that gets used to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Let the people who benefited from all those emissions pay to clean them up. Not hard conceptually at all.

          • I have "green" electricity. It is "carbon neutral". To be clear the electron that got pushed into my house came from a gas power plant that I live close to, but the actual money I paid funds the operation of a windfarm elsewhere in a country where my money ensured that a gas plant would not be built. I'm still consuming carbon, but as far as the earth is concerned my activity is carbon neutral.

            That pretty much summarizes the issue. Carbon neutral means the same amount of emissions as there would be if you didn't use any electricity. You are using electricity generated by a natural gas plant. You are paying for a windmill somewhere else. Your claim apparently is that the windmill would not be there and would not be generating electricity if you stopped using electricity. And a natural gas would be there and generating electricity in its place.

            The reality is the windmill would be there whether you

      • Unfortunately the people doing the selling of the credits are mostly fraudsters, and the idea of selling you a tree that wasn't going to get cut down with the promise that it now still won't get cut down should result in everyone going to federal prison and sharing a cell with someone who has an impressively sized cock.

        Oh come on! I have enough cellmates as it is! Put them in your own damn cell!

        • hahahahah. Man thanks for making me laugh this morning. I didn't think my post would setup that kind of response. Happy Sunday. :-)

    • If you make a system that allows someone to sell something that has no physical existence and do not create a system that audits it in real time, someone will game the system. The real question is why we allow people to buy and sell carbon credits, rather than actually reduce their emissions.

      Because it's cheaper / saves more long-term / allows someone to profit from an utter illusion. The profit motive is the only driver here. Carbon Credits are a way to say, "Not today, but, you know, it seems a good idea." We love moving goalposts into the future. It's how we keep pretending we're moving forward, while actually regressing.

  • Congress makes the system into a game... (Score:3)

    by Dr_Ken ( 1163339 ) on Saturday October 05, 2024 @03:21PM (#64842445) Journal
    ...and then is shocked (SHOCKED!) when some people try to game the system. The f****** nerve of some people, eh? Bottom line: You can't prevent open and free markets from becoming monopolies or fraud swamps without having strict regulatory enforcement to prevent it.

  • Meta \o/ (Score:3, Informative)

    by easyTree ( 1042254 ) on Saturday October 05, 2024 @03:31PM (#64842453)

    which led to "securing an investment of over $100 million."

    Why not just say:

    which led to "securing an investment of $250 million."

  • ...all of the energy, creativity and time spent on coming up with clever criminal scams could instead be redirected to doing good

    • ...all of the energy, creativity and time spent on coming up with clever criminal scams could instead be redirected to doing good

      Good is rarely as profitable.

  • and it's genuinely free. I see conspiracy.

  • So-called "offsets" and such as a license to dump more carbon in the air like an open sewer.

  • Reduce the number of carbon credits. (Score:3)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Saturday October 05, 2024 @09:56PM (#64843103)

    The number of fraudulent carbon credits should be removed from the total allocation of carbon credits in successive years because they have already been expended. This isn't some sort of punishment, it's just keeping the program on track.

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