Vietnam's Virtual Landscape for Illicit Wildlife Trading: A Snapshot of e-commerce and social media

By Théo Clément and Sam Inglis

Vietnam is known for its highly diverse tropical fauna and is considered to be a major hub for wildlife trafficking in South East Asia – and globally for certain highly trafficked species, such as rhinoceros and tigers. The country has a globalized, export-driven economy with extensive trade links and has been identified as a key node in the wildlife trafficking chain in previous research. Vietnamese networks abroad have been found to be involved in the poaching of at least 18 000 elephants, 111 000 pangolins and nearly 1 000 rhinoceroses since 2010. However, these investigations have led to only a few prosecutions.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. 2022. 26p.