We went undercover… "Anybody here?" …into the world of organized environmental crime. "Do you get them from Poland? How do you do it?" "Via Turkey." "They tried to threaten me. To pressure me." It's as lucrative as cocaine but less policed. "Honestly, I think all of this is illegal." Across the EU, billions of euros have been changing hands for smuggled gases whose global warming potential is much worse than CO2.

"Come on! Let's get out of here!" "So we tried get hold of some of this stuff ourselves." This problem is actually all around us. It's in your fridge, in your AC, or in your supermarkets. Most often, what keeps all of that cool are hydrofluorocarbons, HFCs or simply: refrigerants. But the problem is that they are extremely potent greenhouse gases. For example this one can warm the planet 1,400 times stronger than CO2. And this one almost 15,000 times. HFCs circulate in cooling devices, but if they leak into the atmosphere, they supercharge global warming.

They can leak from any cooling equipment, at home, in shops or in industries. From dumped old fridges and AC units. They can even leak when the devices are serviced incorrectly. So they're being banned in Europe. Which means I should not be able to do this: "Buying refrigerants cheap. And look what comes up." A) I should not be able to buy this and B) It's way too cheap to be legit. What's going on here?! "The black market in HFCs is kind of one of the biggest environmental crimes that most people haven't heard of."

This is one of the experts for refrigerants. She works for the Environmental Investigation Agency, a UK-based NGO aiming to expose environmental destruction and improve policy. We're not going to name her. You'll see why later. "So, there's huge profits to be made. So we get a lot of criminals who see an opportunity. This is probably easier for them than drugs." How did we reach a point where refrigerants are as interesting to organized crime as cocaine?

Well since 2016, more than 170 countries agreed to dramatically reduce HFC use. The EU set the most ambitious limits, with a total ban by 2050. But whenever you restrict supply, prices rise. HFC prices shot up tenfold - and criminals noticed. It's estimated that about a quarter of all refrigerants coming into the EU are smuggled in. That's the emissions equivalent of three million cars driving for a year. So back to my research. To sell these gases legally, you have to fully disclose where they're from and how to handle them safely. You can also only use licensed companies.

This site didn't seem to be doing that. So, I got in touch. "Hello, I'm interested in your refrigerants. Do you also sell to private individuals?" "Yes, if you know what you're doing." Bingo! The guy confirmed that he's also selling to regular people, who don't have a license. And then we set up a meeting. We are driving across Berlin. To meet the guy from the webpage. "Now it's recording." Someone from our Team is wearing a hidden camera.

Everything is set up. Ready to go. Our team is not buying, but we are meeting up with someone who is. We're going to check out the seller together. "Hello!" "Hello, I am waiting for you." "Are you they already?" "Yes." "Perfect!" Five minutes away. "We're going to meet him at his workshop, and honestly, I'm a bit nervous." The guy is somewhere in an industrial area on the outskirts of the city. The gas our team is looking for is called 449a.

It's used in regular supermarkets, in refrigerated counters, warehouses, or shopping centers. More than 1000 times more potent than CO2. "Hello?" "Anybody here?" No trace of him. He said he'd be here. "Hi, we're standing in front of the door." "Hello, hello!" "Hey, how are you doing? Nice to meet you!"

Hidden in the darkness: there are garage businesses and auto repair shops. "And you're a car mechanic yourself?" "No, I just sell gas." "What do you have here?" "We have 404, 134a, 410, 2816, 2823." "And how about paperwork? You don't need that, do you?" "Paperwork? No, no!" "Do you buy them yourself, or do you import them yourself?"

"I import them myself." "Ok. Do you get them from Poland, or how do you do it?" "Turkey. Via Turkey." "Importing costs a lot… German companies that have a quota sell this here for 900 euros." "And you don't have a quota, so you sell it cheaper?" "Yes." "Can one pay without an invoice?" "It's possible without one. In that case, you'll need to pay via PayPal. Paying through the account requires an invoice; otherwise…"

Heart pounding, our team steps out of the garage - and back to our cameraman. "Was it alright?" "He confirmed everything on tape. That he is importing from Turkey, without a license." "He said it like that?" "Yes." "Okay, guys, I'm relieved actually. Everything went too smoothly to be honest. That's insane." No documentation, no licenses, fairly lenient approach for buyers and sellers. The cylinder cost around a third of the official price.

His business appears to be running smoothly and is, by all appearance, illegal. But wait. Did we just come across the real thing? Or was it a complete scam? On the black market, such products are often diluted, doctored, or outright faked. Exposure to these counterfeited refrigerants can harm people's nervous and reproductive systems. So we're on our way to Frankfurt, in central Germany, to check what's really in this bottle.

"Nice to meet you, thank you for your time!" "Yes, of course." "Let's go." I'm meeting Andreas Engel from the University of Frankfurt - he knows everything about climate gases. Just recently, Engel and his team uncovered a major industrial scandal. They measured gas concentrations in the air - and discovered that about 30 tons of sulfur hexafluoride, or SF6 - one of the most potent greenhouse gases - leaked from a factory in the region. He's used to checking for tiny amounts of gases, so he's definitely got the tools to find out what's in our cylinder.

"2025/05 - that's the date it was checked." "But it does looks like an industrially manufactured product." "No, no - this isn't something homemade." There should be a sticker with mandatory information about the climate warming potential, the supplier, safety instructions. That's all missing. No manufacturer, no supplier, no trace.

The refrigerant 449a is actually a clearly defined mix of specific gases. So: The analysis should show only those gases are present. "125 pentafluoroethane is the main component of 404a. 134a trifluoroethane is present in 404a, and that should not be in there." "But 134a is allowed to be there?" "134, yes."

While the lab tests are running, I get a personal crash course in why we have to be so careful about refrigerants. "They basically do this very similar thing than CO2, but to a different degree…" His drawings… well there is still room for improvement though the explanation was excellent. Let me break it down for you: The sun heats the Earth. That heat comes back as infrared radiation. That heat radiation comes in many different wavelengths - like different channels. Some of those channels get blocked by CO2 in the atmosphere. But heat can still escape through other channels - unless refrigerant gases block those, too.

It's like closing one of the last open windows in a greenhouse: suddenly, more heat is trapped inside. There's way more CO2 in the atmosphere, so it's still the biggest driver of global warming. But HFCs block far more heat per kilo, so they do disproportionate damage. The test is done. "Let's check out the results. Let's go. So as far as we can see, there's no dilution?" "No, there is no contamination." That means: The gas is in fact pure 449a refrigerant, from the internet, without documents or receipts, bills.

Releasing this bottle into the air would have a similar global warming effect as one person flying from Germany to the Maldives and back about 5 times. And it's being traded outside the official system. It must have entered the EU illegally. So how did it get past customs? We received this undercover footage from Italy. "I've got an uncle in the financial police, you know? In Rome. And if there's a tip, they step in.

He (my uncle) says: We don't stand there from morning till night checking everything. We're on the ground, and when a tip comes in, we step in. Because how are we supposed to know which container is illegal?" "They conduct their inspections." "They act on tips or check the papers - if something seems strange to them. But otherwise, they don't do any inspections." These clips were recorded by the Environmental Investigation Agency. We are meeting them in Italy, where they recorded this distributor in the south who is buying large quantities to sell them all over the country.

"So this is a company we met with in Puglia, our investigator met with, these are major distributors of what we suspect are illegal HFCs." The gases he offers are by far below legal market prices. The footage shows cylinders of the gas 404a. It's practically banned in the EU. And on the other cylinder we see a label of a major gas seller. The company D-Gas from Turkey. "I'm a little bit nervous talking about this. They tried to threaten me, to pressure me. They said, for example, we know who you are.

We know the number of your car. But that is completely impossible." This person is the EIA's investigator who infiltrated the sector with a fake identity for weeks. "They are no simple scammers. They have relations with institutions, with customs officials and they know policemen, they know politicians. That was very, very impressive." The EIA also tried to trace where the gas is coming from. Look at this map they compiled. Most of the legal and illegal refrigerants come from China.

The world's largest producer of HFCs. They enter the EU via Turkey, Spain, and above all: Eastern Europe. "They might come in via ship or they might come in via road. Bulgaria and Romania are mentioned as hotspots where these gases are flooding into the market." Criminals are moving tens of thousands of tonnes every year. Smugglers have become remarkably effective at what they do. The Italian distributor from the EIA footage alleges that customs - would "eat" as well. In other words: They get a cut for turning a blind eye. But we can't verify that claim independently from these clips.

What we do know is the EIA has collected evidence from Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria that corruption and bribery plays a significant role. Suddenly the Italian seller did want to see documents. So, the investigator had to leave the location in a hurry. "Come on, come on! Let's get out of here!" They also took pictures of his car. What the distributor is indicating in this footage appears to be repeated across Europe.

Illegally importing tons of gases requires a powerful network behind it. In short: We're seeing the hallmarks of organized crime on a European level. And corruption is not the only gateway for smugglers. Some simply enter the EU via unofficial crossing points with their car or truck and hope that they don't get checked. Very few border police are trained specifically to identify refrigerants. Others have a license to buy and sell refrigerants - the quota I mentioned before - but they import more than they're allowed to by falsifying papers or misdeclaring gases. And then there is a third loophole. In June 2022, the Spanish police coordinated

a massive raid across the country. The authorities seized 110 tons of refrigerants worth 11 million Euros. The trick? The raided companies used a procedure that allows them to transit cargo - so gases can pass through the EU. On paper the shipment entered through the port of Valencia and was supposed to go on to Jordan - pretty much just putting in a pit stop in Spain. This means the company didn't have to get a license and didn't have to pay an import tax to bring the gas into Europe. In reality, these cylinders were unloaded and distributed in the EU. To make transports look legitimate if stopped,

the network used a ghost company in Portugal - giving shipments an appearance of legality. Since they didn't have to pay to get a license and weren't taxed, they were able to sell the gases they imported at a third of price of the legal gases and still make a profit. "So if I go outside Europe, I can buy these gases for just a few euros a kilo, whereas I can sell them in Europe for 30-40 euros a kilo. So it's really just simple economics. I go outside the EU, I buy lots cheap, I come in and I sell it with a huge profit." Investigators also seized over 300,000 euros in cash, ecstasy, and over 400 grams of cocaine.

Spain's investigative authorities are showing how it can be done. And in Germany? I've got some evidence on my desk. But in Germany, finding out who's actually responsible is harder than you'd think. "We're still at the very beginning," an investigator who must remain anonymous told us. "We have to get our foot in the door. That's the difficulty. And that's where it starts. What's out there just on the internet, you can only see the tip of the iceberg." Spain's Guardia Civil has a large specialized unit for environmental crime hitting the networks. In Germany, meanwhile, enforcement is still going after the little guys

selling on the internet. "Manpower is indeed a major problem." And expertise too. Don't get me wrong: the system has its flaws but it's also forcing change. Europe has reduced its own share of emissions from HFCs by a third. But the illegal trade highlighted in this video threatens to undermine the achievements. "In a 2020 assessment, around 30% of HFCs couldn't be properly traced back." That's what one regional authority in Germany told us.

The federal state of Hessen has set up a small refrigerant task force. But meanwhile, the illegal market is active and may increase. "One thing is certain: With every reduction in quotas, the share of the illegal market naturally increases as well." Looking back, I'm still struck by how easy it was to get hold of these ticking time bombs. "The law in Europe is one of the best we have in the world." It sounds hard to believe after what we've seen. Having a law is one thing.

Putting it into practice another. On the other hand: The EU does have a plan. A complete phase-out by 2050. It's a world's first. "So it's really down to customs now to do a better job of enforcing and to really police these quota holders. Often it's the quota holders who are exploiting the rules." Climate friendly alternative to HFCs already exist and are pushed by the regulation. But they require new systems and cost money - that's what's keeping the old market alive.

"By the way, the police declined to comment on the website and the dealer we met." Now I just have to figure out how to dispose of this gas safely. "Have you ever heard about these gases? Let us know in the comments and please subscribe to Planet A."