Six men have been arrested over accusations of running a recycling fraud scheme that trucked tons of trash from Las Vegas casinos into California in order to collect state redemption money, authorities announced yesterday. A criminal complaint filed in February in San Bernardino County charged seven men with conspiracy, grand theft and unlawful recycling, including the owner of West Coast Waste Industries, the state's third-largest recycling processor, authorities said. Six have been arrested and one man remains at large, according to a statement from the state Department of Justice and CalRecycle, which oversees the state's recycling program. Under the program, Californians pay a deposit on cans and bottles they buy and receive a refund when the empties are returned to a certified recycling center. Prosecutors contend that last year, the men trucked tens of thousands of pounds of aluminum and plastic beverage containers from casinos to Southern California recycling centers in order to collect the 5- or 10-cent cash refunds.
展开▼
