Illegal wildlife trade

Subject: Environment

Context:

“Money Laundering and the Illegal Wildlife Trade” report was released by FATF.

Concept:

Findings:

• The illegal wildlife trade (IWT) is a major transnational organisedcrime that fuels corruption, threats biodiversity, and can have significant public health impacts. In particular, the spread in recent years of zoonotic diseases underlines the importance of ensuring that wildlife is traded in a legal, safe and sustainable manner, and that countries remove the profitability of illegal markets.
• According to the 2016 UN World Wildlife Crime report, criminals are illegally trading products derived from over 7 000 species of wild animals and plants across the world. This includes iconic mammals, but also lesser-known species of reptiles, birds and amphibians.
• Criminals are relying on “established” methods to launder proceeds from IWT, including the placement and layering of funds through the formal financial sector. This shows the important role that financial institutions can play in detecting suspicious activity.
• Wildlife traffickers often use front companies that have connections to import-export industries to help to justify the movement of goods and payments across borders (e.g., plastics, timber, frozen foods, or artwork).
• New technologies play an important role in facilitating communication and non-face-to-face payments between buyers and sellers for illegal wildlife. In particular, encrypted communication platforms and illegal wildlife marketplaces hosted via social media sites, online vendor platforms, and the dark net increase the ease with which wildlife transactions can occur between buyers and sellers