It's like a free enterprise scene from "Seinfeld"

What state needs a fraud like this more than debt-ridden California? Get busy, California, have you looked into environmental fraud yet? The price tag could well be in the $Billions.

LOS ANGELES - DOJ: Recycling fraud rings robbed state of $3.5 Million - Sacramento Business Journal - Three separate recycling gangs trucked millions of bottles and cans into California. (so that's where they go!)

Californian is one of 11 states where you get 5 or 10 cents for each returned bottle/can brought to one of its recycling centers. The redemption value is paid when consumers buy a beverage, and can be redeemed to encourage recycling. About 80 percent of bottles and cans are redeemed, California A.G. Jerry Brown said in a news release.

Fraud rings illegally brought in truckloads of containers from Nevada and Arizona, which don't have redemption programs. The loads were taken to recycling centers in Riverside, San Bernardino, Imperial and San Diego counties, authorities say. In one case, 1.6 million pounds of cans and bottles were imported from Nevada, authorities claim.

A Las Vegas man collected and stored them at his home and in several storage facilities, according to the attorney general's office. Twice a week, the man and others used rented 16-foot and 24-foot trucks to haul 5,000-pound loads to a storage facility in Montclair, where the materials were parceled out to other ring members who took them to various recycling centers, authorities allege. In another case, authorities said cans filled with sand to increase their recycling weight, were hauled from the Phoenix area to Moreno Valley.

Hmmm, Kramer and Newman were bad examples!