Authorities in Italy are investigating a Ndrangheta mafia clan accused of trafficking and illegally dumping nuclear waste. According to a whistleblower, a manager of the Italys state energy research agency Enea paid the clan to get rid of 600 drums of toxic and radioactive waste from Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany, and the United States, with Somalia as the destination, where the waste was buried after buying off local politicians. Former employees of Enea are suspected of paying the criminals to take waste off their hands in the 1980s and 1990s. Shipments to Somalia continued into the 1990s, while the Ndrangheta clan also blew up shiploads of waste, including radioactive hospital waste, sending them to the sea bed off the Calabrian coast. According to the environmental group Legambiente, former members of the Ndrangheta have said that they were paid to sink ships with radioactive material for the last 20 years.
In 2008, Afghan authorities accused Pakistan of illegally dumping nuclear waste in the southern parts of Afghanistan when the Taliban were in power between 1996 and 2001. The Pakistani government denied the allegation.