REPORT: Environmental Crime and its Conversion with Other Serious Crimes
Crime syndicates who traffic environmental products often also trade in a range of other illicit goods, raising complexities and challenges in all phases of enforcement. This new INTERPOL report discusses the capacity of agencies to effectively respond to environmental crime when it intersects with other serious crimes, called "crime convergence".
Environmental offences are typically treated in isolation from other serious crimes, reflected in the separation of environmental agencies from other law enforcement functions. This separation, the report asserts, needs to be dismantled to create a more sophisticated operating environment.
The report provides insight into the nature of crime convergence from an environmental crime perspective, and examines the types of crimes that most commonly converge. It then proceeds to make suggestions on how agencies can better can better respond to convergence through collaborative operations, integrating multi-disciplined law enforcement in a strategic manner.
Some of the strategies mentioned to counter crime convergence include:
- Training staff in “follow-the-money” investigation techniques
- Developing intelligence sharing agreements between environment authorities and policing agencies.
- Engaging with anti-money laundering networks to develop guidance and red-flag indicators to enable banks to detect and report money laundering linked to environmental crime.
Want to know more? Read the full INTERPOL Report.
