By Victoria Dittmar and Parker Asmann

The expansion of illegal cattle ranching is threatening nature reserves in Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala. This activity provokes staggering levels of deforestation, irreversible environmental degradation and violence towards Indigenous communities, all while fueling a criminal market that generates millions of dollars in proceeds. A portion of these cattle are smuggled into Mexico, where they either feed the domestic demand for meat or are mixed with beef exports sent to the United States and other countries. This report, produced by InSight Crime, follows the cattle trafficking chain from Central America to Mexico and provides an overview of how this illicit market works. It estimates the size and scope of the industry, highlights illegal ranching hotspots and smuggling routes, identifies the main actors involved in the value chain, analyzes where and how this activity overlaps with other criminal economies, and offers recommendations for governments to tackle the issue. The findings are based on a 14-month investigation that included desktop research, telephone and in-person interviews, and fieldwork in the Mexican states of Veracruz, Tabasco, and Chiapas, the Río Plátano Reserve in Honduras and the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala. Our sources include international, national and local authorities, cattle ranchers and cattle union leaders, former contraband cattle buyers, veterinarians, Indigenous leaders, park rangers, residents of the nature reserves, environmental activists and academic experts. Most of them asked to remain anonymous for their protection. We also reviewed official government data, studies conducted by academics nd non-governmental organizations, and press reports.

Washington, DC: InSight Crime, 2022. 68p.

By North Atlantic Fisheries Intelligence Group and INTERPOL

Secrecy, or the ability to keep one's identity hidden behind a corporate veil, is a key facilitator of fisheries crime, including tax crime and other ancillary crimes in the fisheries sector. Secrecy means that investigators “don’t know what they don’t know” and is a fundamental challenge to fisheries crime law enforcement. The focus of this report is the jurisdictions that facilitate secrecy in fisheries, the flags of convenience, and particularly those that are contracted out to private companies, the so-called private flags, and the impact flags of convenience and secrecy has on effective fisheries crime law enforcement.

NA-FIG, INTERPOL, the Nordic Council of Ministers and Norad 2017. 76p.

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By Sjarief Widjaja, Tony Long and Hassan Wirajuda

By looking at the breadth of areas in need of reform, this Blue Paper lays out a methodology for addressing IUU fishing, including best practices for implementing the Port State Measures Agreement and other means to prevent IUU fishing catches from entering the market. It also discusses ways to promote technologies for combating IUU fishing, strategies for transitioning IUU fishing fleets, and the role of regional and international partnerships.

Washington, DC: World Resources Institute, 2020. 60p.

By Carolin Liss

In PRIF Report No. 125 Assessing Contemporary Maritime Piracy in Southeast Asia: Trends, Hotspots and Responses Carolin Liss takes a close look at contemporary piracy in this region, examines the nature of pirate attacks and identifies recent piracy trends and hotspots. Has there been a shift or change in comparison to the last piracy boom in this region between the 1990s and the mid-2000s? And what could be done to ensure piracy does not worsen, to protect those targeted by attacks in the future and guarantee the safety of the region’s primary maritime shipping routes?

Carolin Liss demonstrates that, unlike in waters such as the wider Gulf of Aden area, there is no need for international warships or armed private security guards on ships in Southeast Asia. Instead, it is important to work out tailored responses to the specific types of attacks as well as adopt broader measures which address the root causes of piracy.

Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF), 2014. 40p.

By Annette Hübschle-Finch

A multi-sectoral regime of protection including international treaties, conservation and security measures, demand reduction campaigns and quasi-military interventions has been established to protect rhinos. Despite these efforts, the poaching of rhinos and trafficking of rhino horn continue unabated. This dissertation asks why the illegal market in rhinoceros horn is so resilience in spite of the myriad measures employed to disrupt it. A theoretical approach grounded in the sociology of markets is applied to explain the structure and functioning of the illegal market. The project follows flows of rhino horn from the source in southern Africa to illegal markets in Southeast Asia.

Kohn, Germany: International Max Planck Research School on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy, 2016. 424p.

By Amy Hinsley

The ornamental orchid trade is global and comprises both a large, well-established legal market and a significant but largely unknown illegal trade. Much, though not all, of this illegal trade is driven by demand from specialist collectors for rare species. The trade in wild-harvested plants can have a severe impact on biodiversity: in one documented case, intense demand for a rare species of slipper orchid saw it harvested to near extinction. Illicit sales of wild orchids have been recorded on several online platforms, including e-commerce and social-media websites, forums and private websites, and sellers encompass both hobbyists and formal businesses. Consumers range from houseplant buyers, who want to purchase attractive plants, to specialist growers with a preference for rare species. For consumers who want to avoid illegal avenues of trade, and for researchers and law enforcement who want to monitor the trade, legality can be difficult to determine. However, it can be possible if the plant’s origin, species and final destination can be identified. This brief makes a substantial contribution to our ability to identify illicit orchid trade and the platforms most likely to host it.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2018. 23p.

By Indah Budiani and Febri Raharningrum

This report aims to address how the illegal parrot trade is conducted online, and to what extent the use of internet-based platforms has facilitated the international trade. It examines the overall structure and key figures in the parrot trade, and addresses how trade chains and interactions between different actors in the illegal market have changed with the emergence of new, virtual forms of doing business. The increased efforts of Indonesian authorities to clamp down on wildlife trade and to pursue criminal actors operating online are also covered, as well as the effect these operations have had on the strategies used by parrot traders to avoid detection. It also addresses the relationship between the illegal and legal trade in captive-bred parrots and opportunities for laundering. Drawing together these strands, the report considers both the challenges and opportunities the online parrot trade offers for effective monitoring and law-enforcement responses.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2018. 18p.

By Carl Miller, Jack Pay, and Josh Smith

The internet is used to trade endangered species and commodities containing parts from endangered species, and more broadly hosts communities and subcultures where this trade is normalized, routine and unchallenged. This report presents a new technical process that has been trialled to identify online marketplaces and websites involved in the trade of a selection of CITES-listed animals and plants. The technology, known as the Dynamic Data Discovery Engine (or DDDE), was developed with the aim of building upon qualitative research to produce larger, more comprehensive datasets of similar activity taking place. The report contains a description of the process and the results that it produced, its strengths and weaknesses, and some thoughts on how it might be used by others hoping to reduce the extent to which the internet can be exploited by those wishing to transact endangered animals and plants. It is hoped that the process will contribute to the creation of a more comprehensive picture of online illicit wildlife trade (IWT) activity.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2019. 28p.

By Rupert Horsley

There has been startling growth in the online illegal wildlife trade (IWT), and broad recognition of the need to apply financial and anti-money-laundering tools to the fight against environmental crime. Much illicit trade carried out over the internet requires some form of electronic payment. This paper explores how various payment methods are used in the online IWT, and the challenges and opportunities these present to law enforcement. Some inroads have been made into combating the online counterfeit trade by suppressing activities of ‘rogue’ digital payment providers that facilitate illicit trade. Opportunities to target the online IWT by monitoring digital payment transactions will emerge only if regulatory systems and technology keep pace with levels of innovation used by illegal wildlife traders to avoid detection.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2018. 20p.

By Théo Clément, Simone Haysom, and Jack Pay

Pangolins are known to be among the world’s most trafficked animals, due to the use of their meat and scales in Africa and Asia. Several species of pangolins have been driven to the brink of extinction due to a massive illicit trade that not only connects pangolin range states in Asia and Africa but also Europe and the United States. This report provides large-scale evidence supporting the claim that the internet plays a major role in the trade of pangolin-derived products across various jurisdictions.

This report provides actionable recommendations for national authorities in China and elsewhere in order to curb the online trade of pangolin-derived items. The MMFU will continue to monitor pangolin-derived products markets on the indexed web and social media sites to ensure sustained awareness about this problem and its effects, and engage with the platforms identified to request action to curb the use of their service in cases where evidence of activity that appears contrary to national and international law exists. More information about the online trade of endangered species will follow as the Unit’s investigations evolve.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2022. 42p.

By Jo Hastie

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has been researching the threat that online wildlife trade poses to endangered species since 2004. During that time, our research in over 25 countries around the globe has revealed the vast scale of trade in wildlife and their parts and products on the world’s largest marketplace, the Internet - a market that is open for business 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Whilst legal trade exists in respect of many species of wildlife, online platforms can provide easy opportunities for criminal activities. Trade over the Internet is often largely unregulated and anonymous, often with little to no monitoring or enforcement action being taken against wildlife cybercriminals. In addition, cyber-related criminal investigations are complicated by jurisdictional issues, with perpetrators in different geographical locations and laws differing from country to country. This poses a serious threat to the survival of some of the world’s most iconic species and the welfare of individual animals. This report outlines the results of new IFAW research in seven different countries in Africa, exploring the availability of wild animals and their products in an area of the world with a rapid growth in access to the Internet.

Washington, DC: International fund for Animal Welfare - IFAW, 2017. 32p.

By Amy Woolloff, Sone Nkoke, Louisa Musing, Magdalena S. Svensson

A TRAFFIC survey of seventy-two online platforms found a staggering 1,267 CITES*-listed species for sale in Central African countries and Nigeria between March 2018 and January 2021. In delivering these findings to the governments of the countries involved, TRAFFIC seeks to bolster national legislation to regulate these online sales when these do not comply with CITES regulations, which might be jeopardising populations of already threatened species. Threatened African species are facing an increasing peril from an unregulated and illegal cyber-enabled wildlife trade in Cameroon, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Gabon, and Nigeria. These countries have a higher rate of growth in internet users than the global average, so it is likely that the volumes of online trade in CITES-listed species will increase as internet penetration rates continue to rise.

Cambridge, UK: TRAFFIC, 2022. 54p.

By Julie Ayling

Demand reduction has now been recognised as crucial to prevention of wildlife crime, but ideas for effectively decreasing demand are still in short supply. Two demand reduction strategies currently predominate, consumer education campaigns and legal prohibitions on consumption. But further strategies need to be found urgently, as Earth is losing wildlife at frightening rates. This paper argues for greater regulatory pluralism and a more systematic approach to addressing demand. The complex and multi-layered concept of demand is unpacked and current demand reduction activities by states and non-state actors are discussed. The paper identifies third parties (non-state non-offending actors) in prime positions to intervene to reduce demand and sets out diverse ways in which their capacities could be harnessed as part of a whole-of-society demand reduction response.

Canberra: RegNet School of Regulation and Global Governance, Australian National University; European University Institute Dept of Law, 2015. 23p.

By Vanda Felbab-Brown

Southeast Asia, with its linkages into the larger Asian market that includes China, Indonesia, and India, is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots as well as one of the world’s hotspots for the illegal trade in wildlife and wildlife parts. Although demand markets for wildlife, including illegally traded wildlife are present throughout the world, China ranks as the world’s largest market for illegal trade in wildlife, and wildlife products, followed by the United States. Globally, the volume and diversity of traded and consumed species have increased to phenomenal and unprecedented levels, contributing to very intense species loss. In Southeast Asia alone, where the illegal trade in wildlife is estimated to be worth $8-10 billion per year, wildlife is harvested at many times the sustainable level, decimating ecosystems and driving species to extinction.

Washington, DC: Brookings Institute, 2011. 43p.

By Julie Ayling

The problem of illegal trading in wildlife is a long-standing one. Humans have always regarded other sentient and non-sentient species as resources and tradeable commodities, frequently resulting in negative effects for biodiversity. However, the illegal trade in wildlife is increasingly meeting with resistance from states and the international community in the form of law enforcement and regulatory initiatives. So why does it persist? What makes the criminal networks involved in it resilient? In this paper we consider the networks involved in the illegal trade in rhinoceros horn that is currently posing an existential threat to most rhino species. The paper considers possible sources of these networks’ resilience, both internal and external, and the implications for how the trade could be tackled.

Canberra: Transnational Environmental Crime Project, Department of International Relations, Australian National University, 2012. 22p.

By Tanya Wyatt

Wildlife trafficking is a major black market, and is thought to be the second most profitable illicit market after drug trafficking. It has significant negative impacts on species, ecosystems, and biodiversity. After habitat loss, wildlife trafficking is the leading cause of extinction. It is also a threat to food industries and human health with its connection to disease transmission. The patterns of wildlife trafficking vary throughout the world and nations approach the prevention of it differently. The differences that exist raise the question as to why the levels differ between nations that appear to be similar. This is the case with the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, which are demographically similar with a significant shared cultural history. Yet New Zealand has high levels of wildlife trafficking, Australia low levels, and the UK somewhere in between. This research uses the trade database from the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to explore all the illegal trade incidents of these three countries reported to CITES from its creation in 1973. Combined with a review of the literature, the paper investigates the differences and similarities in the wildlife that is traded and the legislation that is implemented. It appears that more regulation in this instance may be connected to decreased levels of wildlife trafficking.

Canberra: Transnational Environmental Crime Project, Department of International Relations, Australian National University, 2013. 25p.

By Matthew Marshall

This paper summarises, analyses, and assesses four working papers published by the Transnational Environmental Crime (TEC) Project and written by two employees of the Australian Government’s Department of the Environment (DoE) who served as Visiting Fellows to the TEC Project. This working paper also forms part of the TEC Project. It synthesises the data and concludes the overall contribution made by DoE, emphasising future areas of consideration. Part of this involves enunciating research findings in such a way that they can be better utilised by DoE to subsequently develop policy in the area of TEC regulation, which is also one of the aims of the TEC Project generally: that the course of academic research provide assistance in the development of government policy on the matter of TEC with subsequent operational benefits.

Canberra: Transnational Environmental Crime Project, Department of International Relations, Australian National University, 2014. 24p.,

By Jiang Nan

The illegal ivory trade fuels illegal elephant poaching in both Africa and Asia. The illegal ivory trade in China is considered a key threat to the survival of the elephant species: since 2009, China has become the largest illegal ivory market in the world. Although China has uncovered a great number of cases of illegal ivory trade with the seizure of illegal ivory in the past decade, this trade is still growing. A deeper understanding of the nature and patterns of illegal ivory trade through an analysis of ivory seizure data should improve the efficiency of efforts to prevent the illegal ivory trade in China. This paper analyses data on 106 seizures of illegal ivory that was collected from Chinese news reports between 1999 and 2014, with a particular focus on its frequency and illegal trade ‘hotspot’ locations in China. The analysis found three illegal ivory trade cycles (2001–2005, 2006–2010, and 2011–2014) and four hotspots. Preventing the illegal ivory trade will require more international cooperation and coordination between China and other countries,

Canberra: Transnational Environmental Crime Project, Department of International Relations, Australian National University, 2015. 17p.

By Environmental Investigation Agency, UK

This is a tragic true story of high culture, peerless art forms, and a rich historical identity being warped by greed and obsession, which consumes its very foundations to extinction and sparks a violent crime wave across Asian forests. This report details the findings of EIA’s investigations into the Siamese rosewood trade in recent years, including in the year since the CITES listing. It reveals how crime, corruption, and ill-conceived government policies from Thailand to China, via Laos and Vietnam, are likely to result in the demise of Siamese rosewood in the coming years, unless significant and rapid reforms are made.

London: Environmental Investigation Agency, 2014. 28p.

By Alexander Fedorov, Alexei Babko, Alexander Sukharenko, Valentin Emelin

Transnational organized environmental crime is a rapidly growing threat to the environment, to revenues from natural resources, to state security and to sustainable development. It robs developing countries of an estimated US$ 70 billion to US$ 213 billion annually or the equivalent of 1 to 2 times global Official Development Assistance. It also threatens state security by increasing corruption and extending into other areas of crime, such as arms and drug smuggling, and human trafficking. Russia possesses enormous forest resources (over 83 billion m³), representing a quarter of the world’s timber reserves. However, illegal logging and forest crime result in enormous monetary losses from the state budget According to data from the Russian Federal Forestry Agency (Rosleshoz), in 2014 alone there were 18,400 cases of the illegal logging of forest plantations—a total volume of 1,308,400 m³—with an estimated value of 10.8 billion rubles. However other estimates vary from 10-20% (Prime Minister’s office) to 50% (Prosecutor General’s office) of total timber harvest. While there has been a reduction in the amount of illegal logging in some regions of the Russian Federation, illegal logging has increased in other regions. Presently, no effective methods have been adopted for assessing the amount of illegal logging in the Russian Federation. The damage caused to forests is not only economic, but also ecological. The report reveals the scale of illegal logging in Russia based on the best available, most up-to-date, expert data. It is hoped that governments will take note and take action.

Arendal, Norway: GRID-Arendal, 2017, 38p.