As the Covid-19 pandemic slowly subsided and borders opened this year, criminal networks went back to business as usual, resulting in an increase in poaching and trafficking of wildlife and as a result, an increase of seizures. In response, the Wildlife Justice Commission stepped up its fight against transnational organised wildlife crime. Our intelligence-led approach allowed us to secure major arrests in, amongst others, Nigeria, Mozambique and Thailand, to deepen our understanding of the criminal dynamics, and to share our expertise with law enforcement, policy makers, and practitioners across the globe.



About the Wildlife Justice Commission
The following short film explains how the Wildlife Justice Commission works, what type of organised criminal networks we investigate and why we do what we do. See Our Work.
Our mission is to disrupt and help dismantle the criminal networks that profit from the trafficking of wildlife, timber and fish, a major crime that brings species to extinction and puts global security and public health at risk.
Latest News
28 November 202228 November 2022
Speaking for Wildlife Justice at CITES CoP19
The chance to afford greater protection to nearly six hundred species of wildlife was the focus of this year’s CITES CoP19 (Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora at the nineteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties), which took place in Panama this month.
15 November 202215 November 2022
New report on tiger farms: How organised crime exploits captive tiger facilities
Over the last century, the wild tiger population has fallen to alarmingly low levels. While tigers are adversely affected by climate change, habitat loss, and human-wildlife conflict, the illegal tiger trade is believed to be the most imminent threat.
14 November 202214 November 2022
Where does the fight against wildlife crime need to go next?
I was honoured to be invited to share reflections on the fight against wildlife crime at the recent United for Wildlife Global Summit in my capacity as the Executive Director of the Wildlife Justice Commission and I would like to take the opportunity to share those reflections also in this blog.
Rhino horn trafficking as a form of transnational organised crime
“The worst wildlife crimes are transnational in their context and those committing them act with impunity worldwide. Effective prevention and responses, therefore, should have a crucial transnational strategy and component. The Wildlife Justice Commission fulfils a fundamental function, contributing to the prevention of, and justice for, wildlife crimes.”

Diego García-Sayán
Former President of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
“The Wildlife Justice Commission has built perhaps the best intelligence and investigative capacity in relation to illegal wildlife trade in the world. It has been instrumental in the arrests of more than 40 wildlife criminals, most of them level 3 criminals or above; it is working with a wide range of law enforcement agencies and has helped improve the seriousness with which wildlife crime is taken in key trading and market countries such as Malaysia and Vietnam.”
External independent evaluation commissioned by the Adessium Foundation
“I was honored that the Wildlife Justice Commission selected me to present the results of its investigation during the 2016 Public Hearing in The Hague. I was delighted to learn that the Wildlife Justice Commission’s investigators had assembled an overwhelming case, with a meticulous and professional attention to detail. The Wildlife Justice Commission’s collection of evidence was as thorough and as well-presented as any I received while serving as a federal prosecutor at the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.”

Marcus Asner
Partner at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer
“The Wildlife Justice Commission in The Hague, which maintains a remarkable intelligence network tracking the trade, has warned that criminals are stockpiling material and that lockdown is allowing poachers in sub-Saharan Africa a free rein. There is an overwhelming moral and environmental case for a multilateral effort to stifle this business. It is also worth remembering that Ebola, HIV, Sars, H1N1, Mers and Sars-CoV-2 are all reportedly zoonotic diseases, which jumped species because of intense proximity between humans and the original carriers. We must now recognise a hitherto relatively unimportant branch of organised criminal activity has the capacity to bring the entire world to a standstill.” Article published in The Guardian, 7 June 2020

Misha Glenny
Award-winning journalist, historian and author.
“One may consider illegal wildlife trade a soft underbelly of organised crime, but the network and associated cells perpetrating illegal wildlife trade are hard criminals. The intelligence collected and collated by the Wildlife Justice Commission therefore can be very useful to Law Enforcement Agencies in their investigations into other organised crimes and vice versa.”

Nelson Cheng
Former Assistant Commissioner of Police (Operations) of the Hong Kong Police
“The activities of the Wildlife Justice Commission were a true revelation to me: innovative, focussed, daring, well-documented, alerting and mobilizing at the right time the official authorities. This approach has proved very successful. Supporting the Wildlife Justice Commission’s activities is a must for whoever is interested in fighting wildlife crime and protecting the planet for future generations.”

Dr. A.H.E.M. ‘Nout’ Wellink
Former President of the Dutch Central Bank
“[The Wildlife Justice Commission] has unquestionably been able to disrupt criminal networks involved in wildlife crime to an extent never done by an NGO before.”
Excerpt from 2022 external independent evaluation report commissioned by WWF Netherlands
“As the Wildlife Justice Commission says, it takes a network to defeat a network. Wildlife crime – where plants and animals are traded illegally – often overlaps with more widely known forms of organised crime. With the right partnerships and expertise, these networks can be obstructed. We are delighted to support the Wildlife Justice Commission’s efforts to protect biodiversity and empower those who are on the frontline tackling wildlife crime.”
Dr Simon Chaplin
Chief Executive Officer, Arcadia – a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin
“Oak Foundation is proud to continue providing core support to the Wildlife Justice Commission in its fight against transnational organised wildlife crime. We believe the work of the Wildlife Justice Commission is tremendously important in protecting our planet’s biodiversity. This is a critical component in countering climate change. It is time to act now.”
Christopher Parker
Trustee at Oak Foundation
“Perhaps most important of all, [the Wildlife Justice Commission] WJC has opened the eyes of many enforcement agencies to the value of intelligence and has inspired and encouraged them to build their own intelligence databases and analytical capacity.”
Excerpt from 2022 external independent evaluation report commissioned by WWF Netherlands
“In recent years WJC has had a significant impact on wildlife crime investigations in Vietnam, in an atmosphere where wildlife crime is taken much more seriously by the Vietnam Government. WJC’s capacity on intelligence analysis is highly relevant in the wildlife crime space, is welcomed by a number of enforcement agencies, particularly, Vietnam and Thailand, and has had a strong inputs to the wildlife crime capabilities of enforcement agencies in those countries.”
Yoganand Kandasamy
Regional Lead for Wildlife and Wildlife Crime, WWF Greater Mekong
“I am always thrilled to learn about the brilliant activities of the Wildlife Justice Commission. We should encourage watchful and dedicated leaders and actors to always deter organized wildlife crimes, as the Commission will continue its mission from now into the future as a giant step forward in the global fight for wildlife justice.”
Judge Sang-Hyun Song
President of UNICEF Korea, former President and Judge of the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court
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