Environmental crime is now the world’s fourth largest illicit enterprise after drug smuggling, counterfeiting and human trafficking and has outstripped the illegal trade in small arms.
The impact on the natural world has been devastating in some cases. More than a quarter of the world’s elephant population have been killed for their tusks in the last decade alone, according to the joint report from the UN’s environment programme (Unep) and Interpol. Efforts to stem the global crime wave have been thwarted by weak laws, ill-prepared security forces, corruption and chronic underfunding.

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