Despite the increasing use of digital payment methods, cash is still king in many economies – including criminal economies. It remains the most-used payment option across Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, and accounted for over USD 7.6 trillion in consumer expenditures throughout 2022.
That’s a challenge when investigating financial crimes. How can you “follow the money” without records of bank transfers, debit or credit card payments, or digital wallet transactions?
The illegal wildlife trade is operating at an industrial scale. It has a direct impact on the accelerating rate of biodiversity loss and deprives local communities of sustainable livelihoods.
This introductory guide for the Targeting Natural Resource Corruption (TNRC) project:
It leads the Illicit Financial Flows topic page of the TNRC Knowledge Hub and is designed to help practitioners find relevant resources.
The key takeaways are:
Kosovan financial investigators, police, prosecutors and judges have completed the first phase of an intensive Train-the-Trainer (TTT) programme on financial investigations and asset recovery.
Led by our International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) training team in conjunction with UNDP and the Kosovo Judicial Academy, the five-phase TTT programme aims to result in four or five ICAR Certified Trainers while simultaneously training other local participants in the process.
This collection of insights on corruption, the environment and illicit trade emerges from the monthly Corrupting the Environment webinar series between December 2020 and August 2021.
Uganda’s capacity to conduct financial investigations in cases of wildlife trafficking is set to increase, thanks in part to coordinated efforts to develop a cohort of specialist financial investigators at the country’s main wildlife crime investigation agencies.