In late 2024, the Brazilian Federal Police dismantled a massive illegal gold mining network in the state of Pará, revealing a criminal organization whose activities extend beyond the boundaries of the rainforest.
This operation was part of a broader campaign to combat illegal mining in indigenous territories, resulting in the uncovering of links to money laundering through shell companies and forged permits, with funds traced back to accounts in Dubai, Miami, and Panama.
During the raids, Brazilian authorities seized drones, encrypted phones, and fuel-laden boats—all practical tools for a well-funded, cross-border operation. This campaign confirmed what researchers have warned about for years: environmental crime in the Amazon has become deeply intertwined with global financial crime. Armed groups behind these activities are corrupting officials and increasingly operating on an industrial scale.
Environmental crime has become so widespread that it is reshaping the global political agenda, transforming from a marginal issue into an urgent matter on the international diplomatic stage. Discussions on how to combat it are increasingly prominent in UN-sponsored climate negotiations. It has also been officially addressed within the framework of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) and in ministerial meetings at economic summits such as the G20, appearing in joint statements from geopolitical blocs like BRICS+.
Moreover, environmental crimes are not limited to mere destruction of nature; they threaten national security and economic stability, disrupting efforts to combat climate change and protect biodiversity. According to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), environmental crimes such as illegal logging and mining, wildlife trafficking, and improper disposal of hazardous waste generate revenues of up to $280 billion annually, surpassing profits from human trafficking and illicit arms trade.
These illegal markets are often linked to organized crime networks, increasingly connected to cross-border money laundering and corruption, bridging resource-rich areas in Africa, Asia, and Latin America with financial hubs in North America, Europe, and the Middle East.
The growing awareness of the cross-border risks posed by environmental crime is reshaping responses at international, regional, and national levels. Deforestation and loss of nature are no longer viewed merely as environmental issues, but have become major priorities for law enforcement and criminal justice agencies.
At the 16th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP16) held in Colombia last year, several governments and regional organizations—among them the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization and the Inter-American Development Bank—emphasized the links between environmental crime and biodiversity loss. Ahead of this year’s UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Brazil, illegal deforestation crimes and their associated offenses have emerged as a focal point, given their direct impacts on nature loss, carbon emissions, and global warming.
At the same time, the United Nations has intensified its efforts to combat environmental crime within its framework for tackling transnational crime. Initiatives to fight forest crimes and wildlife trafficking have gained momentum over the past decade, particularly since the Doha Declaration in 2015. By late 2024, the UNTOC established an open-ended government expert team to assess existing legal frameworks, identify critical gaps, and consider the possibility of developing a specific protocol within the convention addressing environmental crimes. Advocates of the protocol—among them Brazil, France, and Peru—believe that linking environmental crime to crime-fighting conventions will raise awareness, enhance enforcement capabilities, and bolster regular international legal and technical cooperation.
Similarly, other international governmental institutions have joined the discussions in search of ways to combat environmental crime. The G20, for instance, has taken limited steps to integrate environmental crime into its broader economic and financial agenda. In 2017, the group adopted high-level principles to combat corruption linked to wildlife trafficking. Then at the G20 summit in Brazil in 2024, delegates highlighted the disruptive financial and economic impacts of nature crimes, particularly those stemming from illegal supply chains in sectors like timber, minerals, and wildlife products. For the first time, the group supported measures to trace and disrupt illicit financial flows linked to environmental crimes.
Likewise, BRICS+ has preliminarily identified environmental crime as a shared area of concern and collaboration following a meeting in 2021 where environment ministers acknowledged the risks posed by wildlife-related crimes. Earlier this year, the foreign ministries of BRICS+ countries issued a statement underscoring the importance of addressing illicit financial flows associated with environmental crime. Given this group’s significant global economic footprint, their increasing consensus on this issue sends a strong message.
Coordinating and reconciling these diverse efforts presents a challenge, as each forum approaches environmental crime from a different angle: Conferences of the Parties (COPs) focus on climate and nature protection, while the UNTOC is concerned with law enforcement and criminal justice, and the G20 and BRICS+ are focused on illicit financial flows. The task now is to achieve thematic and diplomatic harmony among these efforts.
Fortunately, the UN’s Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Commission is exploring ways to unify these disparate agendas, including linking environmental crime to combating illicit financial flows. The upcoming BRICS+ summit in Rio de Janeiro in July, COP30 in Belém, and the G20 summit in November present promising starting points for aligning priorities and strategies.
Ultimately, tackling environmental crime requires more than isolated national efforts. The problem calls for sustainable diplomacy across multiple international platforms. Governments, corporations, and civil society organizations can harness their strengths in their respective domains: the COPs provide environmental legitimacy, the UNTOC offers legal foundations, the G20 provides economic influence, and BRICS+ provides geopolitical weight and opportunities for cooperation between Southern countries.
Achieving closer coordination among these forums will not only enhance the global response but will also reduce the costs of combating environmental crime through multilateralism and improve outcomes. In an era marked by geopolitical volatility and declining institutional effectiveness, strategic coordination becomes imperative for any effective response to confront the “lords of environmental crime.”
