Investigating and Prosecuting Wildlife Crime

Trafficking in wildlife involves money laundering, counterfeiting of permits and licenses, avoidance of currency controls, taxes and import/exit duties or the acquisition of necessary documents through extortion, coercion and bribery. Effective responses need the deployment of enforcement techniques, including: controlled delivery; human and electronic surveillance; intelligence-gathering; financial crime investigation; and forensic science support that are usually beyond the capacity of the government agencies and their civil service staff, which have traditionally been responsible for the regulation of trade in fauna and flora. Today, the most efficient and successful prosecutions of those responsible have been conducted using not wildlife legislation but criminal statutes that seek to penalise crimes such as conspiracy and racketeering. This approach also makes clear to the judiciary that the people being brought before them have engaged in serious acts of criminality, which rank alongside those which impact adversely on society.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and INTERPOL place the monetary value of all transnational organised environmental crime between USD70–213 billion annually. The illegal trade in flora and fauna is valued at USD7-23 billion, illegal fisheries at USD11-30 billion and illegal logging and forest crime at USD30-100 billion. Wildlife crime is now considered by leading enforcement agencies as one of the largest transnational organised criminal activities alongside the trafficking of drugs, arms and human beings. It is a threat to sustainable development and is considered a serious and growing danger for global stability and international security.