2 Found Guilty of Exporting Toxic Waste : Environment: Hazardous chemicals bound from Los Angeles to Pakistan were seized at port in Dubai. Verdict marks first conviction by a jury for such a crime.

A federal jury in Los Angeles on Thursday convicted two men of illegally transporting and exporting hazardous chemical waste bound for Pakistan, the first conviction by a jury for this crime, according to federal prosecutors.

The jury convicted Tariq Ahmad, 33, of Reno and Rafat Asrar, 38, of Irvine of violating the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Both men also were convicted of arson, conspiracy to commit arson, mail fraud and perjury. Ahmad was convicted of money laundering.

Thursday’s convictions, after a six-week trial, stemmed from a complicated scheme, according to Assistant U.S. Attys. Stephen A. Mansfield and Nathan Hochman.

Mansfield said the U.S. attorney’s office has several other pending investigations of illegal hazardous waste export, another sign of the growing problem of global dumping.

Government officials have not been able to definitively state the extent of the problem. However, according to a 1990 study by the Center for Investigative Reporting in San Francisco, more than 2.2 million tons of toxic garbage cross borders yearly.

Mansfield said the evidence at trial showed that Ahmad illegally transported and exported the waste after he and Asrar intentionally set fire to Shankman Laboratories in Chatsworth as part of a plan to collect $205,306 in fire insurance.

The Nov. 30, 1989, fire was staged to look like an accident, the prosecutors said.

Three weeks later, Ahmad transported hazardous waste from Shankman to another company in Los Angeles, which did not have a permit to store such material.

Then Ahmad had the waste placed on a ship bound for Pakistan, without the consent of the Pakistanis. The material was placed in hundreds of containers, which were not properly labeled, according to David W. Wilma, special agent in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Los Angeles office.

Wilma said in an interview last year, when Ahmad was indicted, that the material could have caused health problems in Los Angeles.

But the toxic waste was intercepted at a port in Dubai, seized, returned to Los Angeles and properly disposed of.

Mansfield said the original motivation for the crimes was to shore up Shankman’s “desperate financial condition.”

After the arson, Ahmad had to dispose of the chemicals. Mansfield said that it would have cost Ahmad $80,000 to legally get rid of the waste in this country.

In contrast, the cost of exporting the waste to Pakistan was only $1,800, Mansfield said.

“Ahmad intended to dump the 27 55-gallon drums of hazardous waste down mine shafts in Pakistan, owned by Ahmad and his family,” Mansfield said. “This hazardous waste, which included cyanide, mercury and arsenic, if dumped into the ground, would severely contaminate underground drinking water supplies and seriously endanger human health,” he added.

Judge Ronald S.W. Lew ordered Ahmad and Asrar placed in custody, pending sentencing.

Hochman said Ahmad faces a maximum sentence of 115 years in prison and a $4.5-million fine and Asrar faces up to 55 years in prison and a $2.5-million fine.

This is the second conviction obtained by the U.S. attorney’s office here in a hazardous waste case. The first came last year when a man pleaded guilty to illegally smuggling toxic material from California into Mexico.

The Times was unable to reach the lawyer for either defendant.