Beyond the Chainsaw: Addressing Corruption and Financial Crime as Enablers of Forest-related Organized Crime (UNTOC COP 13 side event)

Corruption is the hidden enabler of forest crime, from illegal logging and international timber trafficking to illegal mining and fraudulent carbon credit issuance. It goes beyond bribery, encompassing any abuse of entrusted power for private gain. And it is what turns illegal logging into global financial flows fuelling transnational criminal enterprises.

Tackling the enabling financial crimes is essential to disrupting the networks that profit from forest destruction. This side event to the thirteenth Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) brings together national and global perspectives on this interlinkage.

The event highlights ongoing initiatives that can be replicated elsewhere. Speakers from Member States in Latin America and Asia will share concrete experiences confronting corruption and illicit finance in the forestry sector.

The discussion will also draw on two global initiatives funded by Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI): the LEAP project, implemented by INTERPOL and UNODC, and a new initiative led by the Basel Institute on Governance with TRAFFIC, Transparency International and WWF, working in Indonesia and Peru to strengthen forest integrity.

Speakers

• Lucero Celeste Burga Romero, Prosecutor, Specialized Prosecutor’s Office against Organized Crime (FECOR), Madre de Dios, Peru
• Renata Aquinoga Teures, Logistics Control Coordinator, Enforcement Operations, Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama), Brazil
• Dr Laode M. Syarif, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Hasanuddin University, Indonesia
• Claudio Marinelli, Operations Coordinator at INTERPOL’s Financial Crime and Anti-Corruption Centre (IFCACC) and Head of the Anti-Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Unit, INTERPOL
• Fabrizio Fioroni, Law Enforcement Expert, Drugs Control and Crime Prevention (AML/CFT) - Corruption and Financial Crime Branch, UNODC
• Moderated by Dr Amanda Cabrejo le Roux, Deputy Director, Green Corruption, Basel Institute on Governance

Details

• Date and time: Friday, 23 October 2026, 09:00 CEST
• Location: online (Zoom) and in-person at Vienna International Centre (VIC), Room M0E07, Vienna, Austria
• Registration link for participation via Zoom