With the announcement by the US of a new initiative to counter the illicit financing of environment crime in the Amazon, there are signs the issue is finally an international priority. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen launched the Amazon Regional Initiative Against Illicit Finance last month with the stated aim of boosting training, cooperation, and information sharing to help authorities pursue money-laundering investigations against transnational criminal organizations. The US is poised to step-up the fight against the world’s third most profitable category of organized crime.
Nature crimes include a cluster of activities that enable illegal deforestation, degradation and biodiversity loss. Among the most common are land grabbing, illegal logging, illicit mining and irregular agriculture and ranching – all of which are prolific across the 6 million km² Amazon basin. As noted in the US’s latest strategy on fighting terrorist and other financing, nature crimes are perpetrated by a bewildering array of actors, from organized crime groups, drug cartels, and corrupt land brokers to legitimate companies in the agriculture and cattle sector and large, medium and small-scale landowners.
Nature crimes are part of a wider ecosystem of criminality affecting the eight countries sharing the Amazon rainforest. Alongside illicit timber extraction, illegal gold mining, poaching, and wildlife trafficking are other criminal practices such as targeted assassinations, harassment and intimidation, extortion, fraud, and tax evasion, money laundering, and corruption. The interconnectedness of nature crime with these other illegal activities make the former particularly hard to police and prosecute, especially when committed by hardened criminal syndicates that operate across borders.
