The scale of illegal mining on an Indigenous reserve deep in Brazil’s Amazon has grown so large that fleets of small aircraft are landing on remote airstrips to truck in…
The presence of corrupt actors who have a vested interest in allowing environmental crime to happen coupled with an overall lack of capacity, resources and political will to combat related…
From ornamental fish trafficking to land grabbing, corruption greases the wheels of every environmental crime motor, feeding deforestation and biodiversity loss in Colombia’s Amazon region.
As gold prices have skyrocketed, criminal groups once solely dedicated to the trafficking of drugs and arms have moved into illegal mining.
Emerging from almost six decades of civil conflict, the world’s number one cocaine producer has paid scant attention to environmental crime.
Authorities in Peru have dismantled a ring that sold explosives to gangs involved in illegal mining, showing how dangerous products needed to mine gold generate illicit profits.
Seizures of coltan in Colombia have shown the complex networks used by armed groups to smuggle the valuable mineral from illegal mines across the border in Venezuela.
A former army lieutenant allegedly recruited Venezuelan soldiers to provide firepower for the Tren de Guayana gang in a bid to take over gold mining operations in southern Venezuela, revealing…
Recently published data has shown that deforestation in Colombia soared last year, as a number of illegal activities drove forest loss.
Migrants from Venezuela's Warao Indigenous community who have been forced to flee to Guyana find themselves forcibly recruited to work as illegal miners in their new country.
The owner of an armored transport company has been charged for his part in a transnational dirty gold network that moved the metal to the United States via Caribbean islands.
Sporadic clashes between illegal miners and Indigenous communities are not uncommon in northern Brazil but recent shootouts drive a new point home: the miners are convinced they’ll get away with…