Over 400 tonnes of pellets seized in Italian fraud cases
In Italy, the Legnago (VR) division of the Guardia di Finanza has seized more than 400 tonnes of wood pellets for various reasons. The reasons range from the lack of Italian-language information on the pellet bags to fraudulent trade stating unrealistic calorific values and counterfeiting of the "ENplus" trademark by non-certified companies.
ENplus is a world-leading quality certification scheme for wood pellets destined as fuel for consumer heating appliances such as pellet stoves or residential pellet boilers.
In collaboration with the ENplus Head Office in Brussels, Belgium, the ENplus Italy Office – the national licenser AIEL – is assisting the Customs and the Guardia di Finanza in the fight against the trafficking of counterfeit pellets marketed through numerous intermediaries of many national and foreign companies, and then offered at prices that distort the usual market dynamics.
Active fraud management
According to ENplus, this pellet supply chain track and trace is made possible thanks to the rigorous international application of ENplus standards.
The approval of individual bag designs for each certified supplier, the introduction of approval number of the bag designs themselves, the compulsory serial number printed on each bag, and the meticulous verification and archiving activities of the ENplus national licenser AIEL as well as all other stakeholders involved in the scheme provide for such efficient actions.
The ENplus fraud management team continues to follow up on every misuse of the trademark to protect the value of the certification scheme and certified companies.
The number of resolved fraud cases is expected to reach the record number of 1,300 soon.
While the majority of fraud attempts are resolved amicably, when there’s no cooperation, specific procedures on how to handle any misuse of the trademark have been put in place with the help of the scheme’s lawyers.
ENplus is the most active certification scheme for wood pellet quality in the market when it comes to fraud management.
As a result of recent efforts, a new database of websites and contact details of entities pretending to be real, legitimate businesses, and ENplus certified companies, when they are not, has been added to the blacklist page to help the users avoid these fraudsters.
The ENplus blacklist continues to be one of the most visited pages on the scheme’s website, proving that pellet consumers and scheme users are regularly checking who not to trust.
The ENplus mobile application is another helpful tool that is much appreciated by both end-users and pellet professionals.
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