London businessman ordered to pay £1.4m for illegal waste dumping
19th February 2026
A London businessman has been ordered to pay more than £1.4 million for illegally dumping in excess of 4,275 tonnes of waste across England, including on a number of farms.
A nationwide investigation by the Environment Agency uncovered a network of 16 illegal dumping sites, stretching from the northeast to the south coast. Farms, a historic manor house and a nature reserve were among the locations.
36-year-old Varun Datta must now pay £1.1 million, reflecting the financial benefit from his crimes, plus £100,000 in compensation and £200,000 in prosecution costs. He was given a prison sentence of four months suspended for 18 months, as well as 30 days’ rehabilitation and 200 hours of unpaid work.
The case, which concluded in Birmingham Crown Court last Friday, involved the prosecution of two other men, with one being fined and the other facing a suspended sentence, rehabilitation and unpaid work. Warrants for the arrest of two other men are still active.
Emma Viner, enforcement and investigations manager in the Environment Agency’s National Environmental Crime Unit, said: “We are glad to see the perpetrators brought to justice in this appalling case.
“Despite their attempts to conceal their criminality, our in-depth investigation spanning the length and breadth of the country ultimately uncovered those responsible. We will never stop fighting to end the scourge of waste crime, which scars our environment and communities.”
‘Reckless’ crime
In 2018, the Environment Agency seized £131,520 in cash from Datta’s home address. In 2022, a restraint order was applied to two bank accounts, ensuring that any future confiscation order could be paid.
After pleading not guilty in 2023, Datta subsequently pleaded guilty in June 2025 to knowingly causing controlled waste to be deposited at sixteen sites. The total weight of the waste was around 4275 tonnes – roughly the weight of 600 African elephants.
The offences were branded “reckless” by Judge Paul Farrar KC. “Smell and flies were a feature at some of the illegal sites and caused a localised adverse effect to air quality,” he said, with landowners “forced to incur substantial costs in removing the illegal waste.”
No environmental permit or valid exemption was in place at any of the sites, which were spread across Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Lancashire, Kent, Surrey, Rutland and Middlesborough.
The court heard that Datta became a registered waste broker through his company, Atkins Recycling Ltd, in 2015. He acted recklessly by claiming the waste the company handled was being sent to a legal site at Kiveton Park, near Sheffield.
However, the loads were actually diverted to unlicensed dumps around the country. It is alleged that an associate, Sandeep Golechha, helped to falsify weighbridge documents to cover up the illegal acts.
The £100,000 in compensation to be paid by Datta relates to the dumping at the former Sulzer Dowding Mills Factory site in Middlesbrough, as well as the Middleton Nature Reserve in Lancashire. Middlesborough Council will receive £70,000 towards the cost of the clean-up, while £30,000 will be awarded to the Lancashire Wildlife Trust for the future management of the Middleton Nature Reserve.
Commenting on the case, the environment secretary Emma Reynolds said that the Labour government is committed to “stamping out” this type of criminality across the country by boosting funds to tackle waste crime and introducing tougher checks and penalties for those who break the law.
“This is a shocking case of illegal waste dumping, orchestrated by a group of shameless crooks who thought they could operate above the law. I welcome the punishments secured by the Environment Agency, which send a clear message to criminals that they have nowhere to hide.”
Anyone who suspects illegal waste activity is asked to report it to the Environment Agency’s 24-hour hotline – 0800 80 70 60 – or anonymously contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
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