trafficking News

A single, wild pangolin wandered across a golf course in the Philippine’s Cavite province in March 2018. When the golf club staff spotted the scaly anteater, which was hundreds of…

In March 2020, as Bogota’s coronavirus quarantine began, a white smog hung over the city, coming from fires burning in Nukak National Nature Reserve, nearly 400 kilometers, or 250 miles,…

JAKARTA — Authorities in Indonesia have arrested and charged six executives from local recruitment agencies linked to the forced labor endured by 22 Indonesians on board two Chinese fishing boats.…

JAKARTA — Indonesian authorities say they’re still waiting for China’s response to a request to turn over a witness in an investigation into alleged human trafficking that led to the…

The fishing boat flew a Singaporean flag as it sailed toward Batam Island in Indonesia. But when Indonesian Navy officers intercepted the vessel and boarded it in February 2018, they…

The Chinese government has officially removed pangolin scales from a list of approved ingredients in traditional medicine, a momentous move that could bring an end to the large-scale illegal trade…

JAKARTA — Conservationists are calling for an investigation into alleged illegal fishing by a Chinese tuna company that kept Indonesian seamen as virtual slaves, leading to the deaths of four…

Customs officials in Hong Kong have seized 26 tons of shark fins from an estimated 38,500 sharks classified as vulnerable and protected species — the biggest shipment ever to be…

Customs authorities in Malaysia have made one of their biggest ever seizures of African pangolin scales, recovering 6 tons of the contraband in a container at the country’s busiest port.…

Upon traveling through Lechemayo, a town in the Puno region of Peru, many visitors come to the conclusion that the town is a hub for fuel sales. The strong smell…

Colombian authorities have announced they will investigate 33 gas stations for allegedly selling an estimated 70 million gallons (265 million liters) of gasoline to cocaine producers in rural regions of…

It might seem harmless enough at first. The big eyes and the rambunctious, bounding play of the tiny cats and monkeys on your social media feed draw you in, and…

Singapore’s highest court has acquitted a businessman who brought Malagasy rosewood valued at $50 million into the city-state. The verdict on April 8 reversed the ruling of a lower court…

On March 13, scientists announced that around 10 vaquitas (Phocoena sinus) are left on Earth, just as the environmental group Sea Shepherd said it had found one of the porpoises…

A secretive timber kingpin who died last year has been unmasked as the shadowy figure at the center of a vast network that illegally sources teak, deliberately misgrades it to…

NGHE AN PROVINCE, Vietnam — An agreement on legally-sourced timber imports from Vietnam to the EU that was finally signed in October is now being held up against the reality on the…

LONDON — A broad alliance of 30 global banks and financial institutions have pledged to stop wildlife trafficking by pressuring the pocketbooks of criminal syndicates. Tracking the flow of “dirty…

A prominent African wildlife conservation NGO has committed $25 million to help protect iconic fauna from poaching and habitat loss across the continent by investing in African institutions and people.…

When it comes to the multi-billion dollar global illegal wildlife trafficking market, security experts note a "threat convergence" where trafficking and organized crime meet. Because of that convergence, trafficking in illegal…

Wildlife crime investigators now have a new method that builds on the forensic techniques used to collect fingerprints and other identifying marks in helping them track down traffickers of pangolins…

PUNO REGION, Peru – “Life isn’t tranquil here anymore. Not long ago, my neighbor came running, frightened. [She said] a group of drug traffickers came to her house, put a…

A multinational search in May resulted in the arrest of eight men, including three government officials, for allegedly smuggling pangolin scales and elephant tusks, according to Freeland, a Bangkok-based anti-trafficking…

Three people have been shot and killed by soldiers in northeastern Cambodia, according to officials as reported by The Associated Press. Those killed were a conservation worker, a military policy…

BOLIVIA — A skull rests in the hands of a hunter. It is a jaguar’s skull that has all of its teeth in place, except the four fangs that the…

Thai authorities seized 12.5 kilograms (27.6 pounds) of rhino horn from South Africa in December, leading to the arrest of a key figure in Southeast Asia’s illicit wildlife trade. “[This] specific…

Reporting on the plight of wild tigers (Panthera tigris) generally doesn’t lead us down very many pleasant paths. Poaching, habitat loss and the decimation of their natural prey has led…

The trade in rhino horn is still flourishing in China and other parts of Asia, despite a worldwide squeeze on the illegal trafficking of wildlife, according to a report by…

In a major reversal late last month, a high court in Singapore found Wong Wee Keong and his company, Kong Hoo, guilty of illegally importing rosewood from Madagascar, after a…

Remember that endangered anteater-esque ball of scales from Favreau’s recent film, The Jungle Book? That’s the pangolin, the world’s most trafficked mammal. Over one million pangolins have likely been poached…

Wildlife trafficking is a global problem, revealed the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in their first-ever World Wildlife Crime Report. Released late last month, the report finds,…