A negligible chapter in a long and successful criminal career

March 6, 2024 12:38 AM

Markets are inherently fragile, rooted as they are in a common delusion, and the carbon market was especially chimerical because so many participants knew that they were profiting from a farce of their own making. They were trading for the sake of trading, fabricating the impression of value and demand where none existed. “In some countries,” Europol reported, “up to 90 percent of the whole market volume was caused by fraudulent activities.” from Watch It Burn; Two scammers, a web of betrayal, and Europe’s fraud of the century [Atavist; ungated]
posted by chavenet (3 comments total)

"He said that he wanted to put the past behind him and focus on his new ventures, like crypto investing."

Because, of course, crypto.
posted by DreamerFi at 2:09 AM on March 6 [8 favorites]

Fascinating article on repugnant people. I've yet to see any offset (carbon or biodiversity) that does not hum of criminal and/or tital incompetance - tons of offsetting in my country but all it's doing is wrecking farming communities by growing trees on farmland that could store much more carbon, but soil carbon was exempted by NZ when Kyoto was signed. The result is that farmers (who could solve this) lack agency and power to do it. Sure, most farmers seek to increase soil carbon as it improves plant growth but C has many forms and farmers could be incentivised to favour more enduring (aka recalcitrant carbon) C forms.

I recently found a crime research cluster in north England with a lot of people looking at offset scams.
posted by unearthed at 3:42 AM on March 6 [4 favorites]

Fascinating article. Kinda weird ending?
posted by solotoro at 5:36 PM on March 6