Basel Institute on Governance

Quick Guide 13: Financial crime in illegal wildlife trade

Every day, an unknown number of elephant tusks, rhino horn, pangolin scales and other wildlife products – alive and dead – cross the oceans in container ships and cargo flights for use in traditional medicine, crafts and the illegal pet trade. Rare trees are felled in ancient forests and shipped out under false certificates.

They leave behind the butchered carcasses of the last remaining animals of many species, scarred and emptied landscapes, legal livelihoods undermined by corruption and criminal activity, and communities ravaged by organised crime networks.

The Basel Institute is contributing to tackling illegal wildlife trade and its negative impacts on communities, economies and biodiversity from the angle of financial crime. This quick guide by our Managing Director Gretta Fenner gives an insight into our approach and how our various areas of expertise fit together to help solve this complex puzzle.

About this Quick Guide

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. It is part of the Basel Institute on Governance Quick Guide series, ISSN 2673-5229.

Related publications

Research case study

Research Case Study 3: Exposing the networks behind transnational corruption and money laundering schemes

2023 | Basel Institute on Governance

Jacopo Costa
social network analysisnetwork ethnographyinformal governancecorruption researchmoney launderingoffshore structuressecrecy jurisdictions

Research case study

Research case study 2: Leveraging informal networks for anti-corruption in East Africa

2023 | Basel Institute on Governance

Claudia Baez Camargo, Saba Kassa, Jacopo Costa
informal networksinformal governancesocial normsbehavioural research

Research case study

Research case study 1: Targeting corrupt behaviours in a Tanzanian hospital: A social norms approach

2023 | Basel Institute on Governance

Claudia Baez Camargo

How political economy analysis can support corruption risk assessments to strengthen law enforcement against wildlife crimes

2022 | Targeting Natural Resource Corruption (TNRC) project

Saba Kassa, Jacopo Costa, Cosimo Stahl, Claudia Baez Camargo

Commissioned study, Report

Behavioural insights and anti-corruption: Executive summary of a practitioner-tailored review of the latest evidence (2016–2022)

2022 | Basel Institute on Governance

Cosimo Stahl
anti-corruptionsocial normsbehaviour changerealist synthesisbehavioural insights

Commissioned study, Report

Using behavioural insights to reduce gift giving in a Tanzanian public hospital: Findings from a mixed-methods evaluation

2022 | Basel Institute on Governance

Claudia Baez Camargo, Violette Gadenne, Veronica Mkoji, Dilhan Perera, Ruth Persian, Richard Sambaiga, Tobias Stark
anti-corruptionhealth carebehavioural approaches

Commissioned study, Report

Adopting a peer-led approach to disseminate anti-corruption messages: Results of the network survey

2022 | Basel Institute on Governance

Tobias Stark
social network analysisbehavioural insights

Article

Informal networks as investment: A qualitative analysis from Uganda and Tanzania

2022 | Governance (Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the IPSA Structure and Organization of Government Committee)

Claudia Baez Camargo, Jacopo Costa, Lucy Koechlin
informal networksinformal governanceanti-corruptionsocial normsbehavioural research

Working paper

Working Paper 40: Developing anti-corruption interventions addressing social norms: Lessons from a field pilot in Tanzania

2022 | Basel Institute on Governance

Claudia Baez Camargo
social normsbehavioural insights

Article, Commissioned study

Working Paper 39: Behavioural drivers of corruption facilitating illegal wildlife trade – Problem analysis and state of the field review

2022 | Basel Institute on Governance; TRAFFIC

Claudia Baez Camargo, Gayle Burgess
natural resource managementillegal wildlife tradesocial normsbehavioural insights

Policy brief

Policy Brief 9: Informal networks and what they mean for anti-corruption practice

2022 | Basel Institute on Governance

Claudia Baez Camargo, Jacopo Costa, Saba Kassa
informal networksanti-corruptionanti-corruption evidenceEast AfricaCollective Actioncorruptioninformal governance

Quick guide

Quick Guide 23: Informal networks and anti-corruption

2022 | Basel Institute on Governance

Jacopo Costa, Claudia Baez Camargo, Saba Kassa, Cosimo Stahl
informal governanceinformal networkssocial network analysissocial normsbehavioural insights

Article

The nexus between corruption and money laundering: deconstructing the Toledo‑Odebrecht network in Peru

2022 | Trends in Organized Crime

Jacopo Costa
corruptionmoney launderingcriminal networksorganised crimesocial network analysis

Article

Determinants and drivers of wildlife trafficking: A qualitative analysis in Uganda

2022 | Journal of International Wildlife Law & Policy

Saba Kassa, Claudia Baez Camargo, Jacopo Costa, Robert Lugolobi
wildlife traffickingillegal wildlife tradeenvironmental crimebehavioural driverssocial norms

Article

Structures, functions and flows of IWT: deconstructing a criminal network between East Africa and Southeast Asia

2022 | Crime, Law and Social Change

Jacopo Costa
social network analysisillegal wildlife tradeenvironmental crimetransnational organised crimecriminal governancenetwork ethnography

Article

Papering over cracks or building stronger systems together? Financial crime in the context of covid-19

2021 | Basel Institute on Governance

Policy brief

Policy Brief 8: It takes a network to defeat a network – What Collective Action practitioners can learn from research into corrupt networks

2021 | Basel Institute on Governance

Claudia Baez Camargo, Jacopo Costa, Vanessa Hans, Lucy Koechlin, Scarlet Wannenwetsch
informal networksprivate-sector corruptionanti-corruption evidencemulti-stakeholder initiativesCollective Action Initiativeinformal governance

Article, Report

Informal networks as investment in East Africa

2021 | Global Integrity Anti-Corruption Evidence Programme (GI-ACE)

Claudia Baez Camargo, Jacopo Costa, Lucy Koechlin
informal networksinformal governanceanti-corruptionsocial normsbehavioural research

Case study, Report

Case studies from Uganda: GI-ACE research on informal networks and corruption

2021 | Global Integrity Anti-Corruption Evidence Programme (GI-ACE)

Claudia Baez Camargo, Jacopo Costa, Lucy Koechlin, Robert Lugolobi
informal networksinformal governanceanti-corruptionsocial normsbehavioural research

Case study, Report

Case studies from Tanzania: GI-ACE research on informal networks and corruption

2021 | Global Integrity Anti-Corruption Evidence Programme (GI-ACE)

Claudia Baez Camargo, Jacopo Costa, Lucy Koechlin, Danstan Mukono
informal networksinformal governanceanti-corruptionsocial normsbehavioural research