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Environmental Crime
Environmental crime is one of the most profitable criminal enterprises, generating around USD 110 to 281 billion in criminal gains each year. It covers a wide range of unlawful activities such as illegal logging, illegal wildlife trade and waste trafficking.
The illicit proceeds laundered from these criminal activities fuel more environmental crime. This can have far-reaching implications for natural habitats, the economy, public health and safety.
Despite the negative impact, law enforcement and environmental agencies, as well as banks, lenders and other financial institutions, often do not understand their exposure to this type of financial crime. The FATFs work has focused on exploring how criminals launder the proceeds of environmental crime and to raise awareness with public and private sector, as well as environmental crime groups.
Money Laundering from Environmental Crime
How do criminals launder the proceeds of environmental crime? When properly implemented, the FATF Recommendations provide effective tools to go after these illicit financial flows.
FATF Standards require that countries criminalise money laundering for a range of environmental crimes. In 2021, the FATF added several examples of environmental crimes to the FATF Glossary to clarify for countries the types of offences that fall within this category. But tackling environmental crime requires concerted action, and collaboration.
FATF's focus on environmental crime brought together, for the first time, heads of international organisations including the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) met with the FATF to discuss how to develop partnerships to tackle the dirty money that helps fuel environmental crimes. Fellow keynote speakers Espen Barth Eide, Norway's Minister of Climate and Environment, and Dr. Dame Jane Goodall, primatologist and ethologist, also emphasised the need for coordinated action.
Dr Dame Jane Goodal at the FATF High-Level conference on environmental crime.
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"Go after the people at the top of the international cartels because if those are targeted then their networks may tend to crumble."
The FATF also brought together representatives from civil society, private and public sectors for a webinar to discuss how to fix the gaps in our systems to protect the environment and preserve the world's natural resources.
FATF's work on environmental crime builds on earlier work by the FATF on how countries can combat money laundering from the illegal wildlife trade. The illegal wildlife trade is a major transnational organised crime, which generates billions of criminal proceeds each year. One of the most effective ways to identify the broader criminal networks, and take the profit out of this crime, is to follow the financial trails of wildlife traffickers. The FATF's 2020 report highlighted the need for every country to assess their money laundering risks related to the illegal wildlife trade and to ensure that there is a robust legal framework to go after the finances of wildlife traffickers, and to pursue financial investigations.
Money Laundering and the Illegal Wildlife Trade
What are the common methods used by wildlife traffickers to launder their money, and what should countries and the private sector do to combat this trade?
FATF's work on environmental crime, including the illegal wildlife trade, will also inform possible future policy development.
FATF High-Level Conference on Environmental Crime
Webinar on Money Laundering from Environmental Crime
ACAMS - WWF Webinar
FATF Webinar on Money Laundering and the Illegal Wildlife Trade
United for Wildlife Taskforce meeting, St James's Palace, 21 January 2019
Tackling the illegal wildlife trade as a financial crime
FATF Training and Support Activities
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