The Wildlife Justice Commission has published a report on the rise and fall of one of Vietnam’s biggest wildlife traffickers. Nguyen Van Nam, referred to in the report as Ah Nam, was the focus of a Wildlife Justice Commission investigation from 2016 until 2019.
Law enforcement agencies globally must address rhino horn trafficking as a form of transnational organised crime along with an increased focus on the higher level actors in the rhino horn supply chain. This was the key message that emerged from a joint webinar hosted by WWF South Africa and the Wildlife Justice Commission to mark World Rhino Day 2022.
I recently had the honour of speaking at the United Nations Ocean Conference in Lisbon in my capacity as the Executive Director of the Wildlife Justice Commission – specifically on Sustainable Development Goal 14.
In June and July 2022, the Wildlife Justice Commission conducted four tailored training courses for law enforcement agencies in Mozambique and South Africa.
The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) joined the Wildlife Justice Commission in co-organising a session about innovative responses that target different stages in international trafficking flows.
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) announced today that they have arrested eight suspects connected with the trafficking of pangolin scales and ivory from Nigeria.
On 27 July 2022, the Wildlife Justice Commission provided support to the Serviço Nacional de Investigação Criminal (SERNIC) during the arrest of a well-known rhino horn trafficker, Simon Valoyi, also known as Navara. The Wildlife Justice Commission acknowledges the outstanding work of SERNIC in bringing this suspect to justice.
The Wildlife Justice Commission, together with Sri Lanka, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and United Nations Ocean Decade co-organised a side event on 29 June on “Crime, corruption, and environment: a criminal justice approach for ocean action and achieving SDG 14”.
In 2021, the Wildlife Justice Commission sent a strong message that the risk/reward ratio for wildlife crime is changing by facilitating the arrests of 32 high-level wildlife trafficking suspects and seizure of one of the largest seizures of pangolin scales since 2019.
To strengthen the legal approach to wildlife crime in the Golden Triangle Region, the Wildlife Justice Commission, in collaboration with WWF, provided a training to local prosecutors and forestry officials in Lao PDR to improve their knowledge base and introduce them to a set of techniques that would allow for more efficient prosecution of wildlife crime.
The past few decades, we have not only witnessed a rise in environmental crime, but also its convergence with other forms of organised crime like the trafficking of humans, drugs and firearms. These facts set the starting point of a panel discussion held during the 31st session of the CCPCJ.
On 19 May 2022, Olivia Swaak-Goldman, Executive Director of the Wildlife Justice Commission, took the floor during the plenary of the 31st Session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPJC), which is taking place this week (16-20 May) in Vienna.
