E-Waste Recycling Fraud Leads to Imprisonment of Total Reclaim Proprietors

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): Jeff Zirkle, 55, and Craig Lorch, 61, who owned Total Reclaim have been sentenced to 28 months in federal prison, after pleading guilty to alleged exports of LCD devices to Hong Kong, in violation of the existing law. The Court has ruled each of them sentences of 28 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised service. In addition, they have been ordered to pay $945,663 in restitution.

The industry watchdog group Basel Action Network (BAN), which investigated the company’s exporting practices had cited the company for illegally exporting e-waste including LCDs to Hong Kong. Consequently, Total Reclaim’s certification was cancelled, which prevented the company from participating in Oregon and Washington state e-scrap programs. Reportedly, the company exported more than 8 million pounds of flat screen monitors to Hong Kong between 2008 and 2015, where they were handled in an environmentally unsafe manner. The owners falsified documents to hide the crime from customers, auditors and authorities.

As per sources, Zirkle will begin his sentence no sooner than this July 23^rd. Lorch will begin serving the sentence after a year.

This story originally appeared in www.resource-recycling.com