Nature crimes: the billion-dollar industry bankrolling global criminal networks
Nature crimes are no longer just a conservation issue — they’re a multi-billion-dollar industry driving money laundering, corruption, and transnational crime.
These crimes, which include illegal wildlife trade, logging, fishing, and mining, don’t just destroy biodiversity but destabilize economies and threaten global security.
Nature crimes comprise the third-largest criminal sector worldwide, valued up to a staggering USD 280 billion annually.
Nature crimes — illegal activities like wildlife trafficking, logging, mining, and fishing — fund organized crime networks, destabilize communities, and threaten security worldwide. These images show (left to right) a wildlife ranger on patrol to stop illegal activities like logging (@WWF/Brent Stirton), a silky shark caught on an illegal longline hook (@WWF/Cat Holloway), illegallly poached elephant ivory being burned (@WWF/James Morgan), and small-scale mining for gold (@WWF/James Morgan).
Worse, they aren’t isolated. Nature crimes are interconnected with other serious offences like drugs and arms trafficking. Criminal networks exploit the same trade routes, concealment methods, and governance weaknesses, creating a complex web of illicit activities.
In fact, nature crimes are now a key financial pillar for other organized crimes. And our new research can prove it.
Over the last four years, TRAFFIC has been working with partners in Brazil, Indonesia, Viet Nam, and Cameroon to understand these overlapping threats and develop strategies to disrupt transnational crime networks while strengthening enforcement.
Here’s what we found:
Indonesia
Key case study: West Kalimantan’s trafficking routes
In one example identified by our research, pangolin scales were collected in villages in West Kalimantan, sold to middlemen in Central Kalimantan, and smuggled to Sumatra before export. The scales are transported via waterways and small roads, with collectors working both in local markets and covert supply chains.
Similarly. illegally logged timber was transported within the province via small rivers and motorboats, often hidden under legal wood to evade detection. The province’s ports and porous borders and vast waterways create ideal conditions for traffickers to evade detection.
The intersection of these routes underscores the need for a coordinated enforcement strategy targeting hotspots.
Cameroon
Key case study: the intersection of illegal logging and wildlife trafficking
Cameroon’s logging industry is frequently exploited as a cover for wildlife trafficking. Timber trucks are often used to transport hunters and smuggle wild meat and ivory, while fraudulent waybills and mislabelling facilitate the laundering of illegally harvested wood. Corrupt officials play a crucial role in enabling these activities, creating a convergence of nature crimes that exacerbates the threat to biodiversity and local communities.
Local communities were also found to be complicit in these convergences, such as by supporting illegal mining and logging operators with land acquisitions. At the same time, communities are often victims of administrative powers which illegally deliver authorisations to operators or support illegal mining and illegal logging operations that do not respect community rights.
Urgent reforms, including stronger enforcement mechanisms, enhanced community participation, and stricter regulation of foreign investments, are needed to combat these nature crimes, better support communities, and protect Cameroon’s precious natural heritage.
Brazil
Key case study: illegal gold mining, drug trafficking, and corruption in the world’s largest rainforest
Illegal gold mining in the Amazon serves as both a lucrative business and a vehicle for organized crime. Criminal networks provide logistics, financial backing, and transportation for illegal mining, which in turn serve as a cover for laundering money and smuggling narcotics and wildlife products across borders.
Corruption is deeply embedded in this system, enabling everything from fraudulent gold permits to the smuggling of illegal fuel supplies needed to sustain mining operations in remote areas. Authorities have traced illegal aviation fuel supply chains that funnel resources into mining hotspots, including the Yanomami Indigenous Land, further entrenching criminal networks.
Illegal gold mining is also closely linked to the illicit mercury trade, with our research suggesting that all mercury used in Brazilian gold mining is sourced illegally. Smuggled through hidden supply chains into the Amazon, this toxic metal seeps into waterways during the extraction process, poisoning ecosystems and communities.
Further, the cash-intensive nature of illegal gold mining is exploited to launder proceeds from other crimes, such as drug and wildlife trafficking, fuelling broader criminal networks and creating a convergence that is difficult to dismantle.
Viet Nam
Common challenges across regions
These issues no doubt vary in how they manifest based on the socio-economic and political landscapes in which they take place. For example, illegal logging in densely forested regions often overlaps with corruption and the displacement of Indigenous Peoples, while illegal fishing in coastal regions may be tied to drug trafficking or forced labour.
That said, our research identified several recurring themes across the investigated regions:
Crime convergence
In many places, criminal organizations traditionally engaged in drug, weapons, and human trafficking are now increasingly also engaging in illegal logging, wildlife trafficking, illegal fishing, and resource extraction. These activities fuel corruption, destabilize governments, and undermine legal supply chains.
Trade route convergence
Illegal commodities like timber, gold, and wildlife frequently move along the same routes, exploiting remote border areas and trade hubs universally.
Convergence in criminal tactics
Smugglers use similar concealment methods, such as hiding wildlife products under heavy cargo like timber or fish.
Convergence in regulatory frameworks
Governance gaps are exploited, with corruption, weak penalties, and regulatory loopholes enabling illicit activities.
The way forward
Given these convergences, our research highlights the need for a strategic, nuanced, multi-sector approach to combat nature crimes effectively. Our key recommendations include the following:
Strengthening transnational cooperation to combat cross-border criminal networks and prevent illicit trade.
Empowering national multi-agency cooperation to tackle nature crimes, including taskforces and increased intelligence-sharing.
Enhancing regulatory frameworks to address overlapping criminal activities and promote sustainable economic development.
Supporting local communities to reduce dependency on illicit networks and ensure legal, safe supply chains.
Increasing accountability and transparency within governance structures to counter corruption and enhance enforcement.
Capacitating law enforcement to view nature crimes as a group and target convergent locations.
The fight against nature crimes demands a united, urgent, and sustained effort.
We invite policymakers, businesses, law enforcement agencies, and civil society to join us in disrupting these networks. Together, we can ensure sustainable trade, strengthen global security, and safeguard biodiversity from the relentless tide of this multi-billion-dollar industry, which infiltrates every continent, erodes economies, and steals the wild from future generations.
Footnote
This report was funded by a grant from the United States Department of State, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs. The opinions, findings and conclusions stated herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the United States Department of State, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs.
*For Vietnam, our overview draws from publicly available sources and may not capture every aspect of the situation.
