FACT Environmental Crime Newsletter: Fall 2024

FACT is pleased to share an overview of news and information about efforts to combat environmental crime and the dirty money that comes with it. The newsletter, published twice a year in September and June, highlights FACT efforts and perspectives from our members and allies. Please send feedback or items for our upcoming Spring 2025 newsletter to Julia Yansura at [email protected].

Half-year highlights of FACT’s work on environmental crime and illicit finance

The Amazon Initiative Against Illicit Finance

FACT welcomed the launch of the Amazon Region Initiative Against Illicit Finance by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in July 2024. The initiative targets the proceeds of wildlife crime such as illegal logging and mining through increased cooperation, information sharing, and technical assistance with countries in the Amazon region, including Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Suriname.

The Treasury Department’s announcement comes less than a year after FACT published its agenda-setting report Dirty Money and the Destruction of the Amazon, in which FACT calls on the US to tackle the dirty money linked to environmental crime.

“When it comes to environmental crime in the Amazon, the U.S. is a destination country for both illegally obtained products and the dirty money that comes with them,” Julia Yansura, FACT’s program director for illicit finance and environmental crime, said in a press release. “It’s time for the U.S. to change this dynamic, and the Amazon Region Initiative is an important step in the right direction.”

Analysts at the Igarapé Institute, a leading Brazilian think tank and FACT partner, meanwhile noted that “one of the reasons the US is stepping up efforts to disrupt illicit financial flows related to wildlife crime in the Amazon is precisely the growing involvement of transnational organized crime” in this illicit economy.

New FACT policy paper on environmental crime

In August 2024, FACT published a new policy overview entitled Environmental crime poses a unique challenge in illicit finance and requires specific solutions. It argues that applying generic anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing approaches without tailoring them to the specific realities of environmental crime is unlikely to be fully effective. It outlines ways in which environmental crime differs from other predicate offences.

Environmental crime often involves ‘double money laundering’, where illegally obtained goods are laundered (for example, by making illegally obtained timber appear to be of legal origin by falsifying documents or bribing officials) and the financial proceeds are then laundered (for example, by making dirty money appear to be legitimate income).

As a result of this double money laundering, illicit financial cases involving environmental crime are complex and time-consuming. It is important to recognise this and ensure that investigators and prosecutors have the tools, resources and training necessary to tackle these cases effectively.

Like much of the work FACT does, the policy paper is the result of close collaboration with coalition members and allies. Discussions with the UNCAC coalition helped inform this analysis, and feedback from the Wildlife Justice Commission and the International Wildlife Trust helped strengthen the paper.

From our partners and allies

Chiquita found liable for financing Colombian paramilitary group

In June 2024, a Florida jury found Chiquita Brands International liable for financing the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a paramilitary group and previously designated a foreign terrorist organization.

“By providing more than $1.7 million in illegal funding to the AUC between 1997 and 2004, Chiquita contributed to untold suffering and loss in Colombia’s Urabá and Magdalena regions, including the brutal killings of innocent civilians,” said EarthRights International, which provided legal assistance to some of the victims.

EarthRights further noted that this “is the first time a US jury has found a major US company liable for complicity in serious human rights abuses in another country, a landmark moment for justice.”

As Marissa Vahlsing, Director of Transnational Legal Strategy at EarthRights International, explained to FACT: “This case shows that corporations, no matter where they are in the world, must respect the rights of the communities where they operate or be held accountable in their home courts. Our brave and determined plaintiffs understood this, and now the rest of the world does too.”

EarthRights International, a member of the FACT Coalition, is a non-governmental, nonprofit organization that combines the power of the law with the power of the people to defend human rights and the environment, which they define as “earth rights.” They take legal action against perpetrators of earth rights violations, train activists, and work with communities to demand meaningful and lasting change.

Gold and international responsibility

In June 2024, Rodrigo Botero, director of the Fundación para la Conservación y el Desarrollo Sostenible (FCDS), published an unmissable opinion piece entitled Gold and international responsibility.

“There has been no serious effort by the countries and companies that buy gold, nationally or internationally,” Botero writes in the article. “Nothing seems to have worked – no traceability efforts, certifications of origin, money laundering legislation, nor highlighting links to other serious crimes such as drug trafficking, promotion of slavery and sexual exploitation – to create a framework that encourages formal production and closes the enormous loopholes for illicit production. The result is the ever-increasing environmental, social, economic and political impact of the illicit gold market.”

“Amid smiles, photos and declarations, the countries that buy gold promote here and there a project related to ecological or social sustainability, restoration, technological improvement or association between small and large miners. But fundamentally there is no control over the gold (…)”

In an interview with FACT in August 2024, Botero explained why he wrote the piece, noting that “the illegal gold trade is currently fueling one of the strongest processes of loss of governance, biodiversity and forests in the history of the Amazon.”

Botero wants readers in the US to understand that “this is not a subnational or local problem.”

“We are talking about more than six Amazonian countries, with contiguous borders, which constitute the largest space in Latin America for environmental, social and cultural crimes, in addition to the financing of countless armed groups that undermine the fragile regional democracy,” Botero told FACT.

Botero also told FACT that “the absence of traceability mechanisms (creating a market where the “clean” origin of gold is guaranteed) allows the creation of illegal armies, subjugation of local populations, corruption of government officials, laundering of illegal money through the purchase of land and cattle ranching, as well as links to narcotics proceeds. All of this generates an enormously powerful and unstoppable illegal economy in protected areas and local communities.”

FCDS, an ally of the FACT coalition, is a leading environmental non-governmental organization based in Colombia and Peru. FCDS is committed to the sustainable and equitable development of human communities, mainly in rural areas, in harmony with the conservation of nature and the social characteristics of the areas.

New documentary highlights the reality of deforestation in Peru

A new documentary film by Peruvian investigative journalist Daniel Yovera, “Cotuhé: The Forgotten Frontier,” offers insight into environmental crimes taking place along the Cotuhé River in the Peruvian Amazon, one of the richest biodiversity corridors in the world. The film, produced by Epicentro TV in partnership with Proética, the Peruvian branch of Transparency International, and with the support of the Earth Journalism Network, is available on YouTube in Spanish.

As Daniel Yovera explained to FACT, Cotuhé is Peru’s largest conservation concession, covering 224,000 hectares. He noted that the area is “remote and almost inaccessible.”

Yovera explains that “the owner of the concession had abandoned the site for almost fifteen years, due to the inactivity of the national authorities. This facilitated the penetration of illegal mining and drug trafficking mafias at that time. According to information from Colombia, dissident groups of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) formed alliances with Brazilian criminal organizations to control drug and illegal gold routes, using the Cotuhé River as one of their axes.”

Events

HSI Summit on Nature and Environmental Crime

On September 5, 2024, FACT participated in the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Wildlife and Environmental Crimes Summit in Washington, DC. In a panel discussion with representatives from HSI, the U.S. Department of State, the Spanish Guardia Civil, and the U.S. Department of Justice, FACT Executive Director Ian Gary emphasized the importance of beneficial interest information in combating environmental crime.

COP16 side event: Minería de Oro en la Amazonia

On October 23, 2024, FACT together with allies Observatorio de la Minería Ilegal (chaired by FCDS-Peru), the Alianza is great for reducing the impact of mining (chaired by the Frankfurt Zoological Society of Colombia) and the Igarapé Institute will participate in a COP16 side-event titled Minería de Oro en la Amazonia.

We hope to see some of you in Cali!

Featured Press Releases

New US Treasury Plan Targets Criminal Groups Profiting from Amazon Destruction

Julia Yansura, program director for illicit finance and environmental crime at FACT, was quoted in reporting on the new Amazon initiative by ICIJ’s Brenda Medina.

“These crimes are transnational and therefore require transnational cooperation to investigate and prosecute them,” Yansura said. “To truly curb wildlife crime, law enforcement must follow the money that fuels environmental destruction. We hope the U.S. plays a constructive role in that effort.”

Dipteryx Project: The algorithm that warns of high risks of illegality in Amazon timber

FACT partners including the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Proética, the Peruvian branch of Transparency International, were highlighted in a recent OjoPúblico report on the Dipteryx project, which uses a new algorithm to measure the risks of illegal timber using open-source commercialization data.

Possibilities

The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) is seeking an Africa Program Lead for Forest Campaigns. More information can be found here.

From the listing: “EIA-US is seeking an experienced and highly motivated Program Manager to lead our forest campaigns in Africa and take them to the next level. The Africa Program Lead will be responsible for the development and implementation of EIA’s cutting-edge strategies in Africa. In line with the campaign responsibilities, the Africa Program Lead will lead the Africa Program Team and direct our media and communications strategy across the various priority areas of West, Central and East Africa.”