To tackle environmental crime, track profits through the whole supply chain (commentary)

A Brookings Institution paper argues environmental crimes like illegal logging, gold mining and wildlife trafficking generate an estimated $110 billion to $281 billion annually, though the true figure may run into the trillions, since the money blends into ordinary-looking trade transactions. The authors trace how illegally felled Amazon timber gets paperwork and mixes with legal wood before reaching buyers in France, Germany, Portugal and the U.S., and how gold extracted with mercury changes hands repeatedly before refining erases its origin.

The paper contends enforcement focused on loggers and artisanal miners, often among the poorest people in the supply chain, achieves little while financiers, transporters and permit-manipulators farther downstream keep the larger profits. It calls for financial investigations and regional cooperation targeting the organizers rather than just the extraction sites, noting some of the same networks and routes used for gold trafficking also move cocaine.

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