This session at the 2022 International Anti-Corruption Conference shone a spotlight on efforts to take the profit out of environmental crimes like illegal wildlife trade, fishing, logging and mining.

Following (and confiscating) the money seems an obvious way to disrupt criminal networks engaged in environmental crimes, identify the kingpins and corrupt facilitators, and remove the profit motive. In practice, it is proving challenging. Why? What can practitioners do to ensure financial investigations achieve their potential in the fight against environmental crime?

Organised by the Basel Institute’s Green Corruption team, the event drew on panellists’ practical experiences seeking to make financial investigations a standard part of environmental crime investigations. Liechtenstein’s Minister for Infrastructure and Justice, Her Excellency Dr. Graziella Marok-Wachter, set the scene with opening remarks.

On the panel:

• Ben Brock of TRAFFIC
• Juhani Grossmann of the Basel Institute on Governance
• Elizabeth Hart of the Targeting Natural Resource Corruption project
• Michele Kuruc of WWF Fisheries
• Louise Shelley of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime, and Corruption Center (TraCCC) at George Mason University