Investigating and Prosecuting Wildlife Crime

The harvesting, transportation and delivery of fauna and flora into legal and clandestine markets are now recognised to involve considerable levels of criminality. Organised crime groups and networks are increasingly engaged in such activities, not only because of the considerable profits that can be made but also because they have the range of capacities required to conduct such operations.

Poaching (on land and at sea), illegal logging of timber and gathering of exotic plants, collecting of live animals, and the subsequent smuggling of contraband across multiple international borders require levels of sophistication and complexity that are well beyond the means of individuals keen to possess some interesting specimen. ‘Black market’ prices for several forms of wildlife exceed, sometimes vastly, the monies paid for cocaine, diamonds, gold or heroin.

These organised crime groups have brought to what, historically, might have been viewed as illicit trade degrees of violence, intimidation, corruption and fraud that are more commonly associated with the trafficking of narcotics and firearms. Human trafficking is now regularly linked with, for example, poaching of marine species, where fishing vessels are often found to be crewed by persons who have, essentially, been sold into modern-day slavery. Terrestrial poaching is carried out, in many countries and on several continents, by heavily-armed gangs who do not hesitate to kill the game scouts, wardens and forest guards whose task it is to protect endangered species and their habitats. Residents of rural communities, often living below the poverty line, are exploited by criminal controllers and are regularly dispatched into hazardous terrain to collect the sought-after fauna and flora. In recent years, hundreds of persons have died on both sides of what is often described as the war against wildlife crime.

Mapping actors and instruments for co-operation in enforcing
Nicholas Crampton