An Illusion of Legality: Wildlife Laundering in Colombia and Mexico

Focusing on Colombia and Mexico, the research for this paper uncovers how regulatory gaps, enforcement challenges and limited international cooperation enable wildlife laundering. The paper provides actionable recommendations to strengthen legal frameworks, improve detection and compliance through technological innovation and systematise international and cross-sector collaboration to combat this transnational crime.

Key Recommendations

• Strengthen international and national legal frameworks to prevent exploitation of regulatory loopholes.
• Deploy technological tools, such as genetic sampling and digitised registries for licensed wildlife operations, to strengthen traceability and transparency and improve detection of wildlife laundering.
• Enhance enforcement by targeting exporters and buyers, mainstreaming financial investigations and encouraging financial institutions to monitor and report suspicious activity linked to wildlife laundering.
• Improve international cooperation by developing formal mechanisms for cross-border intelligence sharing and destination countries verifying wildlife imports with source country authorities.