Crime News

A palm oil executive was secretly filmed describing the payment of bribes to public officials in exchange for logging permits and access to land in Papua New Guinea, in a…

DENPASAR, Indonesia — An elected official in Bali surrendered a baby gibbon to conservation authorities last month after a social media post showing him playing with the animal at home…

More than 50 years after the Krenak Indigenous people were subjected to torture, arbitrary confinement, beatings and forced labor in military-run concentration camps, a federal judge has ruled for reparations and an official apology.

JAKARTA — Conservation authorities in Indonesia have condemned a recent incident in which a beached whale shark was cut up and reportedly consumed by locals on the western coast of…

In August 2021, authorities at Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur International Airport discovered a shipment of eight hornbills, caged but alive, en route to international markets. The Department of Wildlife and National…

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — Law enforcers are working to disrupt a wildlife trafficking ring connected to a man arrested last month with the skins and bones of three Sumatran tigers,…

JAKARTA — When the STS-50 was seized in Indonesian waters for illegal fishing in April 2018, it became the poster child for global efforts to reveal the true identity behind…

Despite COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns, 2020 set a new record for the deadliest year for land and environmental defenders, Global Witness said Sept. 13. It’s the second year in a…

(Baca dalam Bahasa Indonesia | 阅读中文版  | 日本語で読む) When Sepri was growing up, life in his village began to deteriorate. In the 1990s, the village, Serdang Menang, in the south…

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — A mother Sumatran tiger and her two cubs were found dead this week in a snare trap in Indonesia’s westernmost Aceh province. Local people in Buboh,…

JAKARTA — An Indonesian court has sentenced disgraced former fisheries minister Edhy Prabowo to five years in jail in relation to a controversial policy to resume exports of lobster larvae.…

QUITO — For almost five years, Andres Durazno and his niece Elizabeth would march, block roads, and confront mining authorities and police together. They were leading the fight against mining…

Difficulty tracing the assets of plantation companies convicted in civil court of causing forest and land fires in Indonesia is among the “technical problems” preventing the nation’s environment ministry from…

Despite a 2019 self-imposed ban, Facebook continues linking wildlife traffickers with buyers around the globe, while the U.S. government has so far done little to regulate trade facilitated by Facebook and other social media firms.

Parrots, inhabiting pan-tropical and temperate regions across the world, are highly sought after as pets due to their attractive colors, calls and clever nature. But some of the trade in…

In 2019, Hong Kong customs authorities inspected a cargo ship bound for Vietnam. Hidden beneath slabs of frozen meat were 8.3 metric tons of illegal scales from about 13,800 pangolins,…

Beginning along Honduras’s northeastern coastline and stretching south into its dense interior rainforests lies the Río Plátano Biosphere. Named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982, the Río Plátano is…

JAKARTA — Lawmakers in Indonesia have expressed shock — shock! — that a controversial bill they passed into law last year amid near-universal criticism legitimizes illegal deforestation for oil palm…

JAKARTA — Authorities should go after illegal loggers with financial charges like money laundering, Indonesian officials said last week at an online panel. Officials from the Attorney General’s Office and…

JAKARTA — On March 10, Suande, a member of the Dayak Indigenous community in Indonesian Borneo, said goodbye to his family before leaving his village for the police station in…

Shoes, watches, wallets and bags — anything made from exotic reptile skins — were plucked from the shelves in Selfridges, a high-end department store in the U.K., in February 2019.…

Firings, threats, thefts, gag orders, attempted kidnappings and other intimidation against environmental researchers and civil servants appear to be on the rise; many blame an incendiary Bolsonaro government.

Mongabay caught up with Igarapé Institute co-founder Robert Muggah this week to discuss Ecocrime, a new data visualization platform that combines visual storytelling with access to raw data on environmental crime…

Three Guarani men were assaulted last week in Mato Grosso do Sul state allegedly over an ongoing land dispute between ranchers and Indigenous people; one expert accuses the Bolsonaro government of “restriction of the rights of Indigenous peoples.”

JAKARTA — Illegal loggers in Indonesia’s remote Papua region have largely evaded any meaningful kind of punishment and continue to operate unimpeded, in what a new report calls a failure…

This article was co-produced with The Gecko Project. JAKARTA — Indigenous people in Indonesia’s easternmost Papua province are protesting against a company that’s preparing to raze their ancestral forest for…

Editor's note (1/29/21): Due to a threat against a party mentioned in this story, this piece has been withdrawn from the site at their request.

JAKARTA — The arrest of Indonesia’s fisheries minister on bribery charges has prompted a freeze on exports of lobster larvae, but a top official has indicated this is unlikely to…

JAKARTA — Authorities in Indonesia have arrested the country’s fisheries minister on charges of corruption related to a controversial policy to resume exports of baby lobsters. Agents from the Corruption…

JAKARTA — Eighty-eight Indonesian sailors have recently been repatriated from a notorious Chinese fishing fleet where six of their compatriots died under harsh working conditions. The Indonesian Foreign Ministry announced…