All About Timber Trafficking

NEWS

Stolen Forests: Uncovering Colombia’s Illegal Timber Trade

COLOMBIA / 21 MAR 2021

More than half of Colombia is covered in forests, but rampant illegal logging is decimating the country’s woodlands.

Organized Crime and the Environment in Latin America: A Fatal Encounter

ENVIRONMENTAL CRIME / 3 MAR 2021

Latin America’s forests are being cut down at an accelerating rate. Asian markets are driving a trade in wildlife products, while wildcat miners decimate Amazon jungle from Peru to Guyana…

Decades of Deforestation, Illegal Mining and Impunity in Nicaragua

ELITES AND CRIME / 27 JAN 2021

Nicaragua's Indio Maíz Biological Reserve, on the southern border with Costa Rica, is under assault.

Peru’s Patrones and Their Patrons

ENVIRONMENTAL CRIME / 18 SEP 2020

Nearly eight months after the wiretaps were installed, the conversations on the phones suddenly changed. The talk of logging, laundering and shipping illegal wood stopped. Instead the voices talked of…

How Drug Cartels Moved into Illegal Logging in Mexico

ENVIRONMENTAL CRIME / 18 SEP 2020

Chihuahua is Mexico’s biggest state, and more than a fifth of its 25,000 hectares is forested, mostly with pine trees of the type that are harvested in vast quantities in…

The Logging Barons of Catacamas, Honduras

ELITES AND CRIME / 18 SEP 2020

Catacamas is the largest municipality in Central America, home to thousands of square kilometers of pristine forest. Political elites in this remote part of Honduras have maintained a profitable relationship…

How Colombia Regulators Became Purveyors of Illegal Wood

COLOMBIA / 18 SEP 2020

In Santander, Colombia, timber traders corrupted regulatory, police and judicial systems on their way to trafficking untold amounts of wood from the state.

Indigenous Leaders Slain in Peru Amid Pandemic

COVID AND CRIME / 17 SEP 2020

Four Indigenous leaders in Peru's Amazon have been murdered since the government declared a state of emergency over COVID-19, revealing how their opposition to illegal logging, mining and drug trafficking…

Environmental Fines Become Flashpoint for Brazil’s Deforestation Crisis

BRAZIL / 8 JUL 2020

The abandonment of environmental fines for illegal deforestation in Brazil is leading to a political scandal, with a cabinet minister potentially being removed from office and state governments breaking with…

Mexico’s Environmental Activists Killed for Resisting Infrastructure Projects

HUMAN RIGHTS / 7 APR 2020

A new report has found that 86 environmental activists have been killed in Mexico since 2012, with a third of the killings linked to energy projects -- an alarming fact…

How Drug Traffickers Became Masters of Honduras’ Forests

ENVIRONMENTAL CRIME / 26 AUG 2019

Illegal timber and drug trafficking are closely linked in northeastern Honduras, a major cocaine corridor in this region. There, criminal groups have savvily combined these two businesses to maximize their…

Bolivia Forestry Officials Profit from Harvest of Illegal Wood

BOLIVIA / 29 JUL 2019

Officials within the agency entrusted with protecting Bolivia's forests falsified data and provided documents legitimizing the illegal harvesting of timber, a scheme that occurs throughout South America.

Report Finds Peru Timber Trade Taken Over by Criminal Networks

ENVIRONMENTAL CRIME / 19 JUL 2019

A new report offering a detailed statistical breakdown of Peru’s timber trade exposes the staggering levels of illegality that have contaminated the country’s wood supply chain and the constant evolution…

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4 FEB 2021

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THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Events – Border Crime: The Northern Triangle and Tri-Border Area

ARGENTINA / 25 JAN 2021

Through several rounds of extensive field investigations, our researchers have analyzed and mapped out the main illicit economies and criminal groups present in 39 border departments spread across the six countries of study – the Northern Triangle trio of Guatemala, Honduras, and El…

BRIEF

InSight Crime’s ‘Memo Fantasma’ Investigation Wins Simón Bolívar National Journalism Prize

COLOMBIA / 20 NOV 2020

The staff at InSight Crime was awarded the prestigious Simón Bolívar national journalism prize in Colombia for its two-year investigation into the drug trafficker known as “Memo Fantasma,” which was…

ANALYSIS

InSight Crime – From Uncovering Organized Crime to Finding What Works

COLOMBIA / 12 NOV 2020

This project began 10 years ago as an effort to address a problem: the lack of daily coverage, investigative stories and analysis of organized crime in the Americas. …

ANALYSIS

InSight Crime – Ten Years of Investigating Organized Crime in the Americas

FEATURED / 2 NOV 2020

In early 2009, Steven Dudley was in Medellín, Colombia. His assignment: speak to a jailed paramilitary leader in the Itagui prison, just south of the city. Following his interview inside…

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