The Finnish police (Poliisi) have launched an investigation into Google’s reported felling of trees at the site of its planned data center in northern Finland.

The Poliisi said that it had launched a criminal investigation over suspected breaches of environmental law. Reports emerged recently that Google subsidiary Tuike Finland had cleared an estimated 250,000 trees at its Muhos site in Northern Finland.

“Based on preliminary information, there have been ambiguities and shortcomings in the drainage and water management at the construction site of Tuike Finland Oy’s data center project,” police said in a statement.

“The criminal investigation will examine, among other things, circumstances related to these issues.”

In response to the investigation, Google released a statement which read: “We’ve partnered closely with the government and communities in Finland on infrastructure for more than a decade, and are actively responding to enquiries from LVV and other authorities. We will cooperate with the investigation announced by the Oulu police on October 29 and will continue to focus on maintaining compliance at our sites.”

The investigation closely follows the issuance of a partial stop-work notice at two of Google’s planned data center campuses in Finland, including the Muhos site. The Finnish Licensing and Supervision Authority issued the notice, suspending all environmentally significant preparatory work at the Muhos and Kajaani sites until required environmental impact assessments are complete. The suspension will not cover planning, measurements, soil surveys, or other work which is expected to have minimal impact on the local environment.

According to Finnish authorities, if Tuike Finland Oy does not comply with the notices issued for both the Muhos and Kajaani data center projects, the agency will consider initiating administrative enforcement proceedings under either applicable special legislation or the EIA Act.

Google is currently in the process of developing three data centers in Finland as part of its €13 billion (about $15.1bn) investment in Finnish AI infrastructure, announced in September. The Muhos and Kajaani sites are part of this investment. It already has one operational data center in Hamina.