How do illegal wildlife products, live animals, exotic marine species and illegally logged timber end up in stores, zoos, aquariums and homes on the other side of the world?

Too easily, is the answer. Weaknesses in global supply chains make them vulnerable to exploitation by organised crime groups and bad actors working in legitimate businesses. Corruption opens the door to that exploitation. And the easy possibilities for laundering money from environmental crimes makes this illicit activity attractive to criminals around the world.

The fifth event in the Corrupting the Environment webinar series explored the latest trends in the online sale of environmental goods, including live animals and wildlife products. What is happening, where, how much and who is doing it? And what are we missing in our efforts to detect and prevent it?

The fourth event of the Corrupting the Environment webinar series co-hosted by the Basel Institute and the OECD focused on how behavioural approaches can and must complement interventions tackling illegal wildlife trade (IWT) and other environment crimes.

Three critical imperatives to tackle the hundreds of billions in illegal funds flowing annually from environmental crimes arose from the latest OECD-Basel Institute virtual dialogue on 17 March.

We have just released a detailed case study on the prosecution of a South African fishing company, Hout Bay Fishing Industries, and efforts to recover the company's illicit assets.

Published under our Green Corruption programme, the case study is authored by Advocate Caroline Dutot of Ardent Chambers, Jersey, with contributions from Howard Sharp, QC. 

Our partners at the OECD have just published a set of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) to help companies involved in minerals sectors better address bribery and corruption risks throughout their supply chain.

Find it here: FAQ: How to address bribery and corruption risks in mineral supply chains

A new policy brief published as part of our Institute-wide Green Corruption programme offers insights into synergies between law enforcement, intelligence and social network analysis (SNA) in the fight against illegal wildlife trade (IWT).