Castellana near Taranto, a port city in southern Italy, local law enforcement arrested 7 suspects in an operation and seized 42.8 tons of illegal HFC refrigerants. The shipment was found during a raid on two warehouses on the city's outskirts, which were used to store, label and resell refrigerants sourced from China.
The seized items included 3,784 cylinders of R134A and R410A, €218,000 in cash, 3 vehicles, hundreds of fake labels, plus filling tools and packaging/storage materials. Six of the 7 arrested individuals were Bulgarian, and they were charged with environmental crimes, receiving stolen goods and commercial fraud.
Outdoor units of cold storage are centrally arranged on the rooftop: unit nameplates and refrigerant labels must be traceable
Why do illegal refrigerants flow into cold storage and freezers? HFCs are subject to quotas and regulations, so refrigerants from legal channels are priced higher and have traceable supply chains. Once there is a price gap, some people will use non-quota sourced goods, refurbished cylinders and fake labels to fill the market. For users, the risks of low-priced refrigerants go beyond compliance: improperly sourced refill cylinders may have issues like mixed filling, excessive water content, or mismatched labels and contents. When entering cold storage systems, these can cause minor problems like ice blockage and increased acid value, or even damage compressors.
In the past two years, law enforcement in Europe has shifted its focus from "sales" to "chain tracing", with all links including customs declaration, warehousing, labeling and sales being traced. The implication for export-oriented refrigeration equipment enterprises is straightforward: the source, composition and labels of refrigerants matching the equipment must align with the documents, and both export customs declaration and after-sales refrigerant refilling must be documented.
Cold storage electrical control system: refrigerant type, charging and maintenance records shall be kept with equipment files
Guizhou Senyue Refrigeration Equipment (Import & Export) Co., Ltd. will check refrigerant types and documents in accordance with the regulatory requirements of the destination market during equipment export and supporting services, and assist customers in completing refrigerant declaration, charging records and after-sales refrigerant refilling processes.
It can be foreseen that the tighter the quotas and the larger the price gap, the stronger the temptation of illegal refrigerants, and the stricter the supervision. For the cold storage industry, refrigerant procurement is changing from "price comparison" to "compliance comparison".
Guizhou Senyue Refrigeration Equipment (Import & Export) Co., Ltd.
2026-10-28
