33 arrest warrants. 20 people in custody. 13 still wanted.
In February 2026, Albanian prosecutors moved on the Kurum steel case: 102 containers of Electric Arc Furnace dust declared as "iron oxide," routed to Thailand, intercepted in Singapore, returned by Maersk, and traced back through OLAF to the people who signed the paperwork.
Among those arrested: company executives, the export broker, five customs officials, and the directors of Albania's environment agency.
The enforcement chain ran start to finish in 18 months. Whistleblower to BAN. BAN to OLAF. OLAF to customs. Lab analysis in Italy confirmed hazardous classification. Charges followed.
Why It Keeps Happening
EAF dust has value. It carries zinc and lead compounds recoverable through smelting. Operators see feedstock. They see margin. They book the container.
What they do not see — or choose not to see — is the classification.
EAF dust falls under Basel Annex VIII as hazardous waste containing lead and zinc compounds (Y31/Y23). Iron oxide qualifies for Annex IX non-hazardous listing at entry B1210 — but only within specific compositional limits. EAF dust does not meet those limits.
The Kurum shipment was declared as iron oxide. The actual cargo was EAF dust. The bill of lading described the outcome the operator wanted, not the material they had.
"The Environment Ministry's failure to grant authorisation led the companies to export the waste in violation of the law, by concealing the true nature of the waste in the accompanying documentation." — Durres Court arrest decision, February 2026
That single sentence is the case. And it will be repeated. BAN's Executive Director told investigators he suspects this pattern occurs every three or four months.
The Trap Operators Walk Into
Most operators who move secondary materials believe the risk is documentation — a missing form, a slow customs agent, a mislabeled box. Fix the paperwork, avoid the problem.
The real risk is classification.
If the waste code is wrong, no amount of clean paperwork rescues the shipment. Customs does not check whether your forms are complete. They check whether what is in the container matches what you declared. When it does not, the question shifts from compliance to fraud.
That decision — to describe the cargo as something it was not — is where the 33 warrants came from.
The Operator Moment
The generator wants the container to move. The receiver wants the material. The freight rate is agreed. The schedule is set. Nobody wants to hear that Basel notification is required, that PIC consent from Thailand must be obtained in writing before the container leaves Durres.
Small operators especially feel this. One delayed shipment can break a cash flow cycle.
But the Kurum case shows exactly what happens when the pressure wins. The EU Waste Shipment Regulation 2024/1157 adds DIWASS — a shared platform across 27 EU customs authorities for real-time cross-referencing of waste shipment declarations.
The compliance bar has not changed. The enforcement speed has.
The Field Rule
A compliant steel waste shipment is built in four steps. Every step has a document. Every document survives customs inspection.
Step 1 — Classify by lab result, not material name.
Get the generator's waste analysis report before booking. Full chemical composition. Leaching test results. Match the actual composition to the correct Basel Annex code. If the result is Annex VIII, the movement is controlled hazardous waste.
Step 2 — Verify Prior Informed Consent before the container is booked.
Basel Article 6 requires written consent from competent authorities in both exporting and importing countries before a single hazardous waste movement begins. Under the new EU WSR, DIWASS handles this digitally.
Step 3 — Document the full disposal chain at destination.
Basel Article 4(8) requires that hazardous waste be managed in an environmentally sound manner at destination. Three documents from the receiving facility: the environmental permit, the waste management contract, and confirmation of the final recovery or disposal method.
Step 4 — Build a compliance file that survives inspection.
When the Durres Prosecutor's Office arrived, the documents did not match the physical contents. A compliance file that passes inspection contains: the generator's waste analysis report, signed PIC from every transit and destination country, the waste management contract, transport documents matching the Basel movement document, and proof of recovery or disposal.
The Takeaway
The operators who survive the DIWASS era are not the ones who move fastest. They are the ones who classify accurately, obtain consent before booking, and keep a file that matches what is in the container.
The Kurum arrests are not an endpoint. They are a signal that the enforcement pipeline is filling.
DexMetal's Shipment Compliance Review covers classification verification, PIC confirmation, and documentation audit — built for freight forwarders and export brokers who need to close the gap between what the bill of lading says and what customs will find.
→ dexmetal.com/services/shipment-compliance-review