The illegal wildlife trade is deeply connected to other forms of organized crime, including arms dealing, drug trafficking and human smuggling, a new study has found.
Michelle Anagnostou led the research as part of her PhD at the University of Waterloo (UW).
She said she was struck to discover, while doing the research, the big knowledge gap that exists when it comes to the illegal activity that’s worth billions annually.
“We don’t have the best sense of how these organized crime networks are moving their dirty money internationally,” Anagnostou told CBC K-W’s The Morning Edition.
“So, especially when they have this kind of sophisticated money laundering system that they may have established from their trafficking in drugs and human trafficking and now using it on the wildlife side, how can we better get at those people who are making millions and millions of dollars off of wildlife and human exploitation?
“And they’re probably not even touching the product. So, we keep arresting poachers in protected areas and smugglers at the border, and oftentimes they’re kind of lower on the value chain than the people we need to be targeting,” Anagnostou added.
Wildlife trafficking is an illicit business involving the unlawful harvest or trade of animals and plants. According to the study, the illegal wildlife trade has wide-reaching implications for society globally.
RCMP committed to disrupting criminal threats: spokesperson
The RCMP, Canada’s national police force, says it’s committed to protecting Canadians and Canadian institutions by detecting, investigating, and disrupting the most significant criminal threats.
A spokesperson for the force said the majority of these investigations are focused on organized crime networks that traffic multiple commodities within and beyond Canada.
“The RCMP is committed to working with provinces, territories and international partners to address the illegal wildlife trade and investigate the involvement of organized criminal networks in this market,” Robin Percival wrote in an email to CBC News.
Percival said the RCMP works with partner law enforcement agencies and the private sector to investigate the laundering of proceeds of crime from the criminal trafficking of multiple commodities.
The force also investigates and charges criminal actors with suspected involvement in the trafficking of multiple commodities, Percival said.
Brent Doberstein, a professor in the Faculty of Environment at UW and Anagnostou’s doctoral supervisor, said the study is a prime example of the kind of research that can inform policy with real-world experience to solve a global problem.
“This work promises to both extend what we know about the complex world of illegal wildlife trade and help in designing interventions to reduce the extent of this crime,” Doberstein said.
Anagnostou’s research used “innovative methods of data collection” and access to law enforcement and intelligence experts, who often cannot publicly share opinions or experiences.
Anagnostou said the next phase of the research will focus on understanding how best to implement anti-money laundering interventions to counter wildlife trafficking in Canada.
“How do we do this better? How do we follow the money, so to speak, and use financial transactions and leverage banks and financial intelligence units to better address this crime and essentially get to these higher up criminal offenders who are really, really making a lot of money?”
This article by Desmond Brown was first published by CBC on 10 November 2025. Lead Image: Leopard skin in a traditional wildlife market in South Africa. A University of Wateroo research found that the illegal wildlife trade has wide-reaching implications for society globally. (Michelle Anagnostou/University of Waterloo).
