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Amnesty international and greenpeace netherlands
Chapter 7 The office of Compagnie Tommy in Abidjan. © Leigh Day
letter specifically stated that Tommy would simply “discharge” the waste – there was no suggestion of processing or treating it. Secondly, the contract named a city dumpsite as the location where the waste would be discharged, and claimed this site was “properly prepared to receive any type of chemical product”. Finally, the clearest indication of all that Compagnie Tommy would not carry out a proper process was the price it quoted to dispose of the waste. This was US$35 (€27) per m³ for chemical slops and US$30 (€23) for MARPOL slops, much lower than the quote of €1,000 per m3 given by APS after it had analyzed the waste.382 It is not necessary to speculate about whether Trafigura was aware that the price quoted by Compagnie Tommy was far too low. This is clear from Trafigura’s own emails, as described in the next section.
Trafigura executives ask Tommy to falsify the invoice On 22 August 2006, three days after the dumping, the Dutch police contacted Trafigura requesting a copy of the documentation stating that the waste from the Probo Koala had been discharged as chemical waste, as well as supporting documentation, including the invoice for this operation.383 Naeem Ahmed, of Trafigura Ltd in London, wrote to colleagues at Falcon Navigation:
““
Bear in mind that it would have cost us approx $250k to discharge 200 cbms in 384 Amsterdam…
”
Minutes later, Naeem Ahmed’s colleague, Jorge Marrero, emailed Puma in Abidjan stating: