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Sunday, October 16, 2022

Crimes Against Nature

 Sasa Braun has been for the past six years a criminal intelligence officer with Interpol's environmental security program.

"The brutality and profit margins in the area of environmental crime are almost unimaginable. Cartels have taken over entire sectors of illegal mining, the timber trade and waste disposal," he said. Braun listed examples of villages in Peru that had resisted deforestation efforts being razed to the ground by criminal gangs in retribution, while illegal fishing fleets had thrown crew overboard to avoid having to pay them.

According to the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol), environmental crime — the third most lucrative area of crime worldwide after drug trafficking and counterfeit goods — generates profits of between $110 billion and $280 billion each year. It is difficult to be more precise because there is an extremely high number of unreported cases. 

Environmental crime has many faces and includes the illegal wildlife trade, illegal logging, illegal waste disposal and the illegal discharge of pollutants into the atmosphere, water or soil. It is a lucrative business for transnational crime networks. 

Illegal waste trafficking, for example, accounts for $10 to 12 billion (€10.28 to 12.34 billion) annually, according to 2016 figures from the United Nations Environment Program. Criminal networks save on the costs of proper disposal and obtaining permits. For some crime networks, the profits from waste management are so huge that it has become more interesting than drug trafficking.

The profits from illegal logging have also grown. Well-seasoned tropical hardwood, which is used to build yachts for example, is increasingly rare and demand is high. According to a 2021 study by the German Association of Engineers (VDI), illegal logging accounts for 30% of activities in the global forestry sector. This figure can rise to almost 90% in countries that produce tropical timber.

"Too often in Europe, there is no real penalty for environmental crime. Lawbreakers can go unpunished and there are too few incentives to observe the law," explained European Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius last year.

Environmental crime, where profit margins can be higher than the drug trade | Environment | All topics from climate change to conservation | DW | 16.10.2022

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