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Jun 1, 2001 12:00 PM

Liliana Guzman-Haynes, formerly of Miami FL, pleaded guilty April 16, 2001, to violating the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The defendant was an owner of Olympic International Freight Forwarders Inc, a South Florida freight company that shipped chemicals to Latin America.

In 1997, four cargo pallets of chemical containers originally consigned to Olympic International in 1991 and 1992 were discovered dumped in western Dade County FL. The containers were in poor condition and contained carcinogens, acids, and poisons such as acetone, nitric acid, ethyl ether, nitrobenzene, and toluene, which presented a fire and explosion hazard. For several years and through several different companies and locations, the chemicals were stored illegally by Guzman-Haynes.

The defendant faces a sentence of up to five years in prison and/or a fine of up to $250,000. The plea agreement also requires Guzman-Haynes to make restitution of $29,095.54 to the Miami-Dade County Department of Environmental Resource Management for cleanup and disposal of the chemicals. The Environmental Protection Agency's Criminal Investigation Division, the Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector General, the county Environmental Crimes Unit, the Miami-Dade Police Department's Environmental Crimes Unit, the Dade County State Attorney's Office, and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's Division of Law Enforcement investigated the case. It is being prosecuted by the United States Attorney's Office in Miami.