By Scottish Government

When a wildlife crime is suspected, the first step is for it to be reported to the police (or detected by the police), and then recorded. Further steps may include investigation to assess whether the recorded crime should be part of a case submitted to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) and then a decision on whether there is sufficient evidence for the case to be prosecuted. Ultimately a court case may result in a conviction or acquittal. All these stages may be supported by relevant scientific evidence and intelligence.

This report presents statistics relating to 2021-22 for the various stages described above. Although these sets of statistics are related, direct comparisons between them cannot be made due to differences in data sources, timing and the bases on which statistics were collated. For example, several recorded crimes may be included in one COPFS case (involving multiple sources of scientific evidence), and subsequent criminal proceedings may occur in a different year.

Edinburgh: Scottish Government, 2024. 38p., app.

By Willis Okumu

Lake Victoria in East Africa is a convergence point for a range of environmental crimes perpetrated by actors who exploit the lake for profit. Fishermen use the water mass not only to legally draw their livelihood but also to profit from overexploitation of the environment through practices such as illegal fishing and sand harvesting. Lack of a unified registration regime for small boats has enabled their use in these illegal activities. A clash in operational mandates of security forces from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania impedes regional efforts to combat these and other crimes.

Key points • Lake Victoria in East Africa is the site of various environmental crimes such as illegal fishing, sand and charcoal harvesting and timber smuggling. • A range of players, including fishermen and state officials, collude in committing these crimes for profit. • Environmental crimes in the lake are facilitated by a lack of cooperation between Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, whose enforcement units operate under different mandates.

Policy Brief, Issue 29. ENACT Africa. 2024, 14pg

By Maurice Ogbonnaya

Although Nigeria’s artisanal and small-scale gold mining sector has considerable developmental potential, it is undermined by the criminal consortia profiteering from it at the expense of vulnerable populations. In Nigeria’s North West, North Central and, to some extent, South West regions, criminal collaboration in the illegal mining of gold between ‘Nigerians in high positions of authority’ and foreign corporations deprives the state of legitimate earnings. It also drives rural banditry and violent local conflicts. The Nigerian state will need to deal with the illegal mining networks that fuel rural banditry and violence both in the North West region and across the country.

ENACT Africa, 2020. 12p.

By ENACT

The illicit exploitation of mineral resources has long-term impacts on the environment, including formation of sinkholes, and contamination of the soil, groundwater and surface water. It also results in soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, health risks and even deaths. However, it is not regarded as environmental crime in Central Africa. This Policy Brief draws attention to the environmental harms caused by illegal mining in the region and explores how national and regional responses to the challenge can address the environmental fallouts.

Key points

• The environmental impacts of illegal mining in Central Africa negatively affect human and animal habitats, as well as the lives of indigenous communities.

• Illegal mining in the region is not regarded as an environmental crime.

• Various obstacles impede attempts to address illegal mining, including gaps in the criminalization of such mining and non-stringent penalties.

• Both state and non-state actors are involved in illegal mining, undermining state authority and regulatory capabilities.

• There are no regional mechanisms to counter illegal mining.

ENACT Africa, 2024. 12p.

By The Environmental Investigation Agency

A thriving online illegal trade in the swim bladders of endangered totoaba fish is helping to drive the vaquita porpoise to the brink of extinction.

Vaquita are the most endangered marine mammal on the planet and exist only in a small area of Mexico’s Gulf of California. It is estimated as few as 10 individuals remain, with the population devastated in the past decade as a result of being caught in illegal gillnets set to capture totoabas.

Totoaba swim bladders – known as maws – are in high demand in China and, increasingly, in other Asian countries as a symbol of wealth and for their purported, but unproven, medicinal value.

London: EIA, 2024. 20p.

By Bakytbek Tokubek uulu, Louisa Musing, Amy Woolloff, Kanaat Musuraliev, Sanjar Kurmanov, Stephanie von Meibom S

Central Asia boasts a remarkable array of ecosystems, harbouring a diverse range of animals, plants and fungi, from majestic Saker falcons to the slow Steppe Tortoises alongside the unique Saiga antelope and various wild species of Bovidae, including Argali Mountain sheep and Siberian Ibex and plants like liquorice root that is used in herbal remedies and teas globally. While the assessment primarily focuses on the trade in animal and plant species listed in CITES Appendices, it also encompasses information on nationally protected but non-CITES-listed species.

The report, part of a trio of Central Asia publications, identifies several species that frequently appear in country seizure records, indicating the need for regional collaboration to combat illegal trade.

Notably, the Saiga Antelope emerges as the most frequently reported species in seizure records from government agencies in Kazakhstan, with smaller records in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The Saker Falcon also features prominently in seizure records from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, with additional reports of live falcons seized upon import to the UAE from Tajikistan. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have seized several thousand live specimens of the Steppe Tortoise.

Beyond providing a comprehensive overview of wild species trade, the study aims to identify common challenges and propose solutions to assist national agencies in coordinating efforts to combat illegal trade while effectively managing and regulating legal wild species trade.

Cambridge, UK: TRAFFIC, 2024. 90p.

By Nicholas Farrelly | Alice Dawkins | Patrick Deegan

  The streets and beaches of Sihanoukville, Cambodia’s infamous party town, are under-discussed areas in the global effort against transnational organized crime. Sihanoukville is known to most readers as a gambling hub and shabby tourist hotspot. But these pre-pandemic clichés do little to explain the role of a city that washes millions – if not billions – of dollars worth of funds from across Cambodia, South East Asia and beyond. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Sihanoukville’s sinister underbelly of criminality has tilted into public view, thanks to thorough local and regional reporting on the city’s underground criminal enterprises and their interconnected interests in wildlife trafficking, human trafficking and contraband. Spotlighting Sihanoukville, therefore, offers a case study to readers on pressing trends in pandemic-era criminal methods, and a perspective on how a cautious China seeks to stamp out the overseas criminal activity of its citizens in a high-priority Belt and Road partnership. This report interprets Sihanoukville’s hub status for transnational organized crime in four areas. The first section explores Sihanoukville's role in the global supply chain of illicit environmental commodities. While few environmental commodities are sourced from Sihanoukville, forest products from other regions of Cambodia have found their way to the port before being trafficked onwards. Sihanoukville is also a destination for wildlife products from abroad (largely, Africa), with ivory and pangolin scales having been sourced for the local market or for sale and onward transport to consumers – primarily in China. Analysis of the ivory trade in Cambodia highlights Sihanoukville’s relevance to the global supply chain of illicit environmental commodities. Section two examines the recent features of Sihanoukville’s criminal landscape. The emergence of new forms of criminality, including online scams, highlights the underlying themes in this report: the attractiveness of Sihanoukville for criminal enterprise, the adaptability and changing nature of criminality, and the relative impunity that criminal enterprises enjoy. Section three analyzes the features of Sihanoukville’s political economy that have led to the city’s status as a dynamic and enduring hub for a myriad of interconnected criminal activities. A deep seaport paired with a large Special Economic Zone (SEZ) enables international trade and the movement of goods with limited oversight. Large-scale real estate developments facilitate capital flight and money-laundering activities. As section four explores, these factors, in combination with elite capture and weak local enforcement, have made Sihanoukville a safe haven for criminal enterprises

The report concludes by outlining policy implications from this research. We conclude that the Chinese government’s serious interest in cleaning up the overseas image of Chinese corporations, especially in strategic Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) locations, means that a window of opportunity exists to nest environmental-crime enforcement within existing and robust Sino-Cambodian counter-crime efforts.   

Geneva, SWIT:  The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime , 2022.  35p.

By Sone Nkoke

Cameroon harbours important populations of both the Critically Endangered Forest Elephant and the Endangered Savannah Elephant. However, well-documented evidence shows that elephant numbers have plummeted due to a variety of factors, especially poaching and illegal trade in ivory. The actors driving this scourge are also varied, ranging from low-level opportunistic poachers to non-state heavily armed militia groups supplying local ivory traders, carvers, domestic black markets, and Asian-run, African-based transnational crime syndicates operating along illegal trade chains that link Cameroon with neighbouring Central and West African countries to distant end-use consumers primarily in Asia, especially Viet Nam and China. 

Cambridge, UK: TRAFFIC International, 2024. 108p.

By Mouhamadou Kane and Lucia Bird Ruiz Benitez de Lugo

  In West Africa, communities increasingly engage in illicit economies to cope with the severe impacts of climate change. However, the environmental impacts of illicit economies magnify the harms of climate change. This report explores these interlinked phenomena in communities peripheral to Senegal’s Niokolo-Koba National Park and proposes responses. Recommendations Local communities have a major role to play in any measures to address the interlinked challenges of illicit economies and climate change. Moreover, their exclusion has impacts beyond conservation and climate change, threatening the legitimacy of the state. Such measures should seek to: l Strengthen the social compact between communities and local governance authorities. l Address corruption in the management of national parks and protected spaces. l Mitigate the negative impacts of securitising protection in national parks. l Support community resilience to climate change impacts through adaptation projects and/or climate resilient livelihoods. l Advance policies to provide feasible pathways to formalise artisanal gold mining.

OCWAR-T Research Report 11

OCWAR-T Organised Crime: West African Response to Trafficking . 2023. 28p.  

By Orrin H. Pilkey , Norma J. Longo , William J. Neal , Nelson G. Rangel-Buitrago , & 2 more

In a time of accelerating sea level rise and increasingly intensifying storms, the world’s sandy beaches and dunes have never been more crucial to protecting coastal environments. Yet, in order to meet the demands of large-scale construction projects, sand mining is stripping beaches and dunes, destroying environments, and exploiting labor in the process. The authors of Vanishing Sands track the devastating impact of legal and illegal sand mining over the past twenty years, ranging from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean to South America and the eastern United States. They show how sand mining has reached crisis levels: beach, dune, and river ecosystems are in danger of being lost forever, while organized crime groups use deadly force to protect their illegal mining operations. Calling for immediate and widespread resistance to sand mining, the authors demonstrate that its cessation is paramount for saving not only beaches, dunes, and associated environments but also lives and tourism economies everywhere.

Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2023. 265p.