Guardia Civil raids major illegal scrapyard network with 10,000 vehicles in the Canary Islands
The Guardia Civil has dismantled a large illegal scrapyard network operating across Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, which falsified environmental certificates to hide the improper disposal of hundreds of heavy goods vehicles from a transport company.
As part of Operation DILANIO, officers shut down three clandestine scrapyards and placed eight people and three companies under investigation for alleged ongoing environmental crimes and document forgery.
According to investigators, the scheme affected more than 10,000 vehicles over the past four years, generating an estimated 1,500 tonnes of CO₂ emissions due to uncontrolled dismantling and waste handling.
The investigation began after SEPRONA officers in Las Palmas discovered an unauthorised site on protected rural land, where they found 44 large vehicles — some intact and others partly dismantled. These vehicles had come from legitimate scrapyards with which the operators claimed to have commercial agreements.
The official paperwork showing the vehicles had been scrapped was processed through those legal scrapyards, helping to disguise the illegal activity.
As the case progressed, Guardia Civil confirmed that a transport company had sent more than 240 heavy vehicles to a scrapyard in Madrid for de-registration and proper environmental treatment. Instead, the scrapyard resold them as scrap metal for profit and diverted them to illegal scrapyards in Las Palmas, where falsified environmental certificates were produced.
Two fully operational illegal scrapyards and a third in development were shut down. All were located on protected rural land covering more than 40,000 square metres. These sites operated behind the front of authorised scrapyards in industrial areas, which provided falsified documentation while vehicles were dismantled without proper safety or environmental controls.
SEPRONA also found that gases from air-conditioning systems and other fluorinated compounds were released into the atmosphere during dismantling, posing a significant environmental risk.
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