Combating International Wildlife Trafficking and Other Environmental Crimes, With Olivia Swaak-Goldman

In this episode of "Financial Crime Matters," Kieran Beer talks with Olivia Swaak-Goldman, executive director of the Wildlife Justice Commission (WJC), about the Hague-based organization’s efforts to stop the illegal wildlife trade and other forms of environmental exploitation, currently the fourth largest source of funds for transnational criminal organizations. Swaak-Goldman discusses how WJC targets traffickers in endangered species and those having the greatest negative environmental impact with its team of former law enforcement investigators, intelligence officials and prosecutors.

Swaak-Goldman highlights WJC’s recent success in prosecuting ivory and Pangolin smugglers with help from Nigeria and China as well as the ongoing struggle to take down transnational criminals throughout the world who rely on the aid of corrupt officials and are often also engaged in human and drug trafficking.

“Wildlife crimes wouldn’t be there without corruption, without fraud, without money laundering,” Swaak-Goldman says, adding, “addressing corruption is absolutely essential to tackling wildlife crime.”

ACAMS and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) collaborated with the WJC to develop a free training certificate on investigative strategies to aid law enforcement in the use of financial intelligence and other data related to the illegal wildlife trade.

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