Former Electronics Recycling Executives Get 28 Months for E-Waste Wire Fraud Scheme

Two former top executives of Total Reclaim, billed as the Northwest’s largest e-waste recycler, were sentenced April 23 to 28 months for wire fraud conspiracy in connection with the illegal export of 8.3 million pounds of junked TVs to Hong Kong between 2008 and 2015, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Seattle. Craig Lorch, 61, and Jeff Zirkle, 55, earned millions by promising to recycle e-waste responsibly but secretly shipped it overseas where it was destroyed in an “environmentally unsafe” manner, it said. “Motivated by greed, these defendants betrayed every pledge they made to be good environmental stewards,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Tessa Gorman said. The green group Basel Action Network tipped off authorities to the scheme after electronically tracking the e-waste to Hong Kong, the office said. After BAN confronted Lorch and Zirkle with its findings, they tried to “cover up their fraud by altering hundreds of shipping records,” it alleged. According to the sentencing memorandum, "Lorch altered Total Reclaim shipping manifests to make it appear" that the company "was shipping plastic, rather than flat screens, to Hong Kong." Efforts to reach the defendants’ lawyers were unsuccessful. BAN didn’t comment.