Environmental Crime: Could a New Protocol Help Us Follow the Money?

Environmental crime is one of the world’s most lucrative criminal markets, generating vast proceeds while driving biodiversity loss and compounding climate and security risks. Across a fractured planet, it acts as a threat multiplier – distorting governance, deepening fragility and allowing criminal networks to permeate licit economies and state structures.

This week in Vienna, states are debating whether to reinforce the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) with an additional protocol on environmental crime – in an effort to better mitigate these threats. As negotiations gather pace, a critical but under-examined question comes into focus: what would such a protocol mean for efforts to follow the money flows behind transnational environmental offending?

The meeting follows a resolution tabled in October 2024 by Brazil, France and Peru at the 12th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNTOC. The resolution called for an intergovernmental process to review how the UNTOC addresses environmental crime, identify gaps in the existing legal framework and consider whether an additional protocol should be developed. The newly established intergovernmental expert group (IEG) first met in June-July 2025; the second and final meeting in February 2026 will be pivotal in shaping future national and multilateral responses.

To date, discussion has largely focused on whether one or more new protocols could bolster international cooperation, harmonise criminal definitions and elevate responses to the level of crimes covered by the UNTOC’s existing protocols – on trafficking in persons, smuggling of migrants and trafficking in firearms. While these are crucial issues, less attention has been paid to a key operational question: what it means for efforts to use financial tools to disrupt the accomplices, facilitators and networks that profit from environmental crime at scale.

The Case for Consistent Criminalisation

One of the strongest arguments in favour of an additional protocol is that it could promote more consistent criminalisation of environmental offences across jurisdictions. At present, legal frameworks vary widely. In some countries, high-harm environmental crimes carry substantial custodial penalties. In others, similar conduct may be treated primarily as an administrative or regulatory violation with limited criminal consequences.

This variation complicates meaningful responses. In many countries, environmental offences remain below the ‘serious crime’ threshold – defined under the UNTOC as conduct punishable by at least four years’ imprisonment. This threshold is significant for the pursuit of money laundering charges: once met, UNTOC Article 6 requires states to criminalise the laundering of proceeds, enabling authorities to target the financial flows sustaining environmental harm. Yet uneven criminalisation has limited the effect of this provision: environmental offences not punishable at this level may not be recognised as predicate offences, precluding the use of money-laundering charges.

Anti-money laundering (AML) legislation generally provides the primary legal basis for financial investigations, creating money laundering offences, establishing private-sector reporting obligations and empowering authorities to trace and confiscate criminal proceeds. Yet AML frameworks differ: some countries adopt an ‘all crimes’ approach, under which any criminal offence can serve as a predicate to money laundering; others use threshold-based systems tied to statutory imprisonment; still others maintain closed lists of specified predicate offences.

These legislative design choices have material consequences. In list-based systems, environmental offences may fall outside the scope of AML legislation unless expressly included – and adequately penalised – in all their relevant forms. Threshold-based systems are similarly sensitive to levels of criminalisation. By contrast, ‘all crimes’ frameworks are likely to capture a wider range of environmental offending, without as much need for specific amendment.

Knowledge gaps persist in this area. Globally, few comprehensive surveys have examined the actual scope of AML legislation in terms of environmental crime across multiple jurisdictions. Some crimes have been studied: a 2019 review of 110 jurisdictions by Legal Atlas found that the ‘status [of illegal wildlife trade] as a predicate offence is uncertain in all but a few countries’ and that ‘its direct and full inclusion as a predicate is a goal yet to be fully realised’. Beyond this, little research has examined how AML law applies to wider environmental offending. While valuable studies have considered criminalisation of environmental harms, few have examined how far offences are covered by AML legislation.

Recognising Environmental Crime as ‘Serious Crime’

Against this backdrop, an additional protocol could make a significant difference. It could obligate or encourage states to criminalise core environmental offences – from wildlife trafficking to large-scale illegal logging and organised illegal mining – establishing common standards for such criminalisation across jurisdictions. By providing clear definitions and guidance, a protocol could reduce legal ambiguity and help ensure that relevant offences are more consistently recognised as serious crimes.

This could have knock-on effects for AML frameworks. In ‘all-crimes’ jurisdictions, the impact on predicate offence coverage may be modest – except where certain forms of environmental harm are not criminalised at all or are treated as administrative violations. It could, however, be highly relevant for those using list- or threshold-based systems, where a more consistent set of definitions combined with the trigger effect of Article 6 could expand predicate offence coverage and strengthen the application of AML legislation.

These potential benefits merit careful scrutiny. Notably, Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Recommendation 3 already provides that countries using threshold-based systems should treat as predicate crimes all offences punishable by more than one year’s imprisonment (where based on maximum penalties), or more than six months’ imprisonment (where minimum thresholds apply). In principle, this could limit the added utility of an UNTOC protocol, except where environmental harms remain uncriminalised. In practice, it is unclear how far countries have implemented the FATF recommendation. An UNTOC protocol could act as a binding reinforcement mechanism, compelling states to operationalise existing recommendations. Ultimately, embedding criminalisation standards in the core UN treaty governing transnational organised crime – alongside FATF guidance – could enhance visibility and accountability around the treatment of environmental crime within AML systems.

Enhancing International Cooperation

Further specific benefits could accrue around cross-border operations. Financial investigations in environmental crime cases are often complex and transnational. Profits may be generated in source countries, laundered through financial centres and invested in entirely different jurisdictions, drawing on mechanisms designed to obscure beneficial ownership. Effective disruption depends on timely information-sharing and coordinated action across multiple states. Harmonised criminalisation facilitates mutual legal assistance, reducing uncertainty about the underlying offence and the availability of financial powers.

Indeed, where dual criminality is required – meaning conduct must be criminal in both the requesting and requested states – inconsistent definitions can stall cooperation or narrow the scope of assistance provided. A protocol establishing agreed offences would strengthen the basis for cooperation and make cross-border investigations more predictable. Taken together, these elements suggest that more consistent criminalisation could meaningfully improve the structural conditions for financial investigations linked to environmental crime.

The Limits of Legal Reform

It is important to maintain a realistic view of what an additional protocol alone can achieve. In many jurisdictions, a wide range of environmental crimes are already predicate offences to money laundering – in ‘all-crimes’ and other approaches. On paper, here, the tools exist – and yet effective financial investigations in environmental crime cases remain uncommon.

The gap between legal availability and operational use is striking. Even where wildlife trafficking or illegal logging clearly qualify as predicate offences, prosecutions frequently focus on the underlying environmental offence rather than the financial flows behind it. Confiscation may target seized goods rather than criminal proceeds, and financial intelligence may not be systematically analysed. This illustrates a fundamental point: AML law creates the possibility. Political and operational prioritisation creates the practice.

A range of factors explain why financial investigations remain underused, even where predicate offence status is clear. Law enforcement agencies may lack training in financial analysis. Environmental authorities and financial intelligence units may operate in silos. Prosecutors may consider money laundering charges complex and resource-intensive compared to pursuing straightforward environmental offences. An additional protocol cannot, by itself, resolve these practical barriers.

Institutional culture also plays a role. Environmental enforcement agencies are often oriented toward the seizure of contraband – illegally harvested timber, endangered reptiles, or mislabelled marine products – rather than tracing financial flows. Building capacity for financial intelligence analysis requires sustained investment. While many capacity-building interventions have been implemented, their effectiveness can be limited absent long-term institutional commitment and strategic integration.

Corruption can also undermine enforcement. Environmental crimes frequently involve powerful actors, including business interests and political elites. Following the money may expose networks extending beyond low-level offenders, creating political sensitivities.

At the same time, AML systems are often stretched. Financial intelligence units process large volumes of suspicious transaction reports related to fraud, drug trafficking, tax evasion and other crimes; without clear prioritisation signals, environmental crime may not feature prominently – including in National Risk Assessments. International cooperation on asset recovery remains slow and complex, and delays in responding to mutual legal assistance requests can erode investigative momentum. None of these challenges disappears simply because environmental crimes are more consistently criminalised.

A Necessary Step

An additional protocol to UNTOC could nonetheless provide a significantly stronger basis for coordinated action against the financial dimensions of environmental crime. By harmonising criminal definitions and encouraging states to recognise these offences as predicate crimes, it could help close legal gaps that currently impede cross-border cooperation and limit the application of AML measures. Normatively, a protocol could elevate environmental crime within global organised crime agendas, signalling that following the money is an essential component of enforcement rather than an optional priority.

To translate legal possibility into operational practice, complementary action is needed. This may include explicit national strategies prioritising financial investigations in environmental crime cases; joint task forces linking environmental authorities, financial intelligence units, customs and prosecutors; greater use of non-conviction-based confiscation and unexplained wealth orders; and stronger engagement by all parts of the private sector in identifying environmental crime-related risks.

Indeed, while an additional protocol could provide a stronger normative and legal basis for action, real change will depend on whether and how states choose to operationalise that framework – by investing in capacity, prioritising financial disruption and committing to follow the money wherever it leads. The limited patchwork of discrete success cases seen globally must now be normalised. Only through such sustained implementation can potential legal reform translate into meaningful disruption of the criminal economies driving environmental harm.

© RUSI, 2026.

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