The article analyses drivers and determinants of illicit wildlife trade (IWT), targeting those factors that support the participation of individuals in poaching and transportation of wildlife goods.
Environmental criminals and their corrupt facilitators get rich by destroying our planet and its natural resources. This publication for the Targeting Natural Resource Corruption (TNRC) project explains how and why to confiscate their illicit assets – with or without a criminal conviction.
The paper investigates the role of criminal networks in fostering illegal wildlife trade (IWT), and how these relational structures interact with transnational organized crime. The paper frames these topics within the debate around the opportunistic or organized nature of IWT. The aim is to understand how chaotic behaviors can transform into an ordered and organized strategy.
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.
The sixth event in the Corrupting the Environment webinar series discussed waste trafficking, a topic that receives little attention despite generating significant criminal proceeds (estimates suggest up to USD 12 billion per year). In addition to the financial costs, waste trafficking has enormous impacts for the environment, including from pollution or degradation, and inhibits development by fuelling corruption and poverty in some countries.
Published under our Green Corruption programme, this is a case study about a South African fishing company, Hout Bay Fishing Industries, that overfished lobster and other protected fish in deliberate breach of government-established quotas. The case study contains numerous important lessons for those seeking to follow the money in large wildlife trafficking cases.
Please join us and our partners at the OECD on 27 January at 13:00 CET for a multi-disciplinary panel discussion on illicit trade in natural resources.
The event is part of the Corrupting the environment monthly dialogue series, which explores creative solutions to burning issues of environmental degradation through the lens of financial crime and illicit trade.
The Basel Institute's Green Corruption programme is launching an ambitious two-year research collaboration with the Targeting Natural Resource Corruption (TNRC) project. The aim is to fill crucial gaps in understanding and addressing the corruption that fuels illegal wildlife trade and other threats to our planet.