Investigating Illegal Trade

Wildlife crime is one of the greatest threats to wildlife and also poses risks to human health, security, and regional stability.

We therefore occasionally participate in undercover investigations of the black market trade in ivory and other products derived from protected species.

Since 2012, our coordinator Arthur has been involved in uncovering trafficking networks and assisting in arrests in Cameroon and Congo as an investigator and direct participant in law enforcement operations. Investigations into suspected trafficking syndicates are often initiated during his own field missions and later pursued together with organizations such as LAGA (Cameroon), PALF (Congo)—both part of the EAGLE Network—as well as government authorities including ministries of environment and the Gendarmerie.

We have also contributed to mapping illegal ivory trade in the Czech Republic. Thanks to the work of the Customs Administration and the Czech Environmental Inspectorate, a significant amount of ivory was seized following our initiative.

We have contributed, for example, to investigations that produced the following results:

• Cameroon, 2016: 2 kg of ivory and 2 arrests
• Czech Republic, 2017: 126 kg of ivory and 5 arrests
• Congo, 2021: 101 kg of ivory, ammunition, a vehicle, and 6 arrests
• Cameroon, 2022: chimpanzee, gorilla, and other primate skulls, 1 arrest

For this work—both online and in the field—we are looking for long-term collaborators, especially people of Asian origin and/or people with knowledge of French, Arabic, or Mandarin.