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SPECIAL REPORT
Money Laundering and the Illegal Wildlife Trade
Report by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog, an inter-governmental body setting international standards that aim to prevent these illegal activities and the harm they cause to society.
The Issue The illegal wildlife trade (IWT) is a major transnational organised crime that fuels corruption, threats biodiversity, and can have significant public health impacts. In particular, the spread in recent years of zoonotic diseases underlines the importance of ensuring that wildlife is traded in a legal, safe and sustainable manner, and that countries remove
Border Security Report | July/August 2020
the profitability of illegal markets. According to the 2016 UN World Wildlife Crime report, criminals are illegally trading products derived from over 7 000 species of wild animals and plants across the world. This includes iconic mammals, but also lesser-known species of reptiles, birds and amphibians. To reflect the serious nature of this crime, the UN General
