FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
04/01/2015 01:54 PM EDT
The INL Beat, February/March 2015
Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
Fighting Wildlife Crime
Date: 03/31/2015
In recent years, INL has significantly increased its effort to combat wildlife crime, as the problem has worsened and transnational organized crime has become more intricately involved in the trade. Wildlife trafficking is a multi-billion dollar criminal activity that ranks near the top of the list of most lucrative forms of illicit trade, behind narcotics trafficking, money laundering, and counterfeiting. Trafficking of protected species fosters corruption, threatens the rule of law, and destabilizes communities that depend on wildlife for biodiversity and eco-tourism revenues. INL has increased its programming and partnered with a wide variety of stakeholders including governments, communities, law enforcers, civil society, and the private sector, pursuing a multifaceted approach that includes capacity building, and multilateral action.
This month senior INL officials participated in several outreach events to raise public awareness of the importance of combating wildlife crime. In celebration of World Wildlife Day on March 3, Assistant Secretary Brownfield participated in a high-level stakeholder dialogue at the Central Park Zoo hosted by multiple UN organizations and NGOs. The theme for this year’s celebration, “Let’s Get Serious about Wildlife Crime,” refers to the need for countries to designate wildlife trafficking as a “serious crime” and to recognize the security threats posed by the growing involvement of transnational organized crime. Later in the week, Ambassador Brownfield participated in a live Q&A session on the State Department’s flagship Facebook page to answer wildlife crime questions from the public, journalists, and NGOs. Reaching over 1 million people worldwide, the Facebook Q&A gave Ambassador Brownfield the opportunity to speak directly to the public and offer them a chance to help in the fight. On March 9, INL Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Luis Arreaga joined private sector and civil society counterparts in a public panel discussion on international environmental crime issues at the Stimson Center in Washington.
In support of the interagency U.S. Implementation Plan that was released in February 2015, Congress has set aside $25 million for overseas law enforcement capacity building to counter wildlife trafficking, with work in four primary areas: 1) strengthening legislative frameworks; 2) enhancing investigative and law enforcement functions; 3) developing capacities to prosecute and adjudicate wildlife crimes and related corruption; and 4) supporting cross border law enforcement cooperation. Aligning with the Implementation Plan, INL has invested in tools and technology to better assist law enforcement efforts.
One of INL’s most important and exciting efforts to combat this threat is support for groundbreaking forensics analysis on ivory seizures. Together with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the World Bank, INL is supporting forensic DNA analysis by University of Washington scientists on major ivory seizures. This analysis compares DNA samples from major seizures against a database of existing DNA profiles of elephants across Africa, allowing researchers to identify the approximate geographic origin of individual ivory samples. The results show that the vast majority of large ivory seizures come from only a few poaching hotspots in Africa, far more limited than previously thought, providing a clearer picture of the trade routes in ivory trafficking. This information should greatly assist law enforcement in placing their limited resources in a focused area for a more targeted approach, helping to disrupt the criminal networks involved in ivory trafficking.
Showing posts with label WILDLIFE TRAFFICKING. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WILDLIFE TRAFFICKING. Show all posts
Monday, April 6, 2015
Thursday, July 31, 2014
CANADIAN ANTIQUE DEALER CHARGED WITH CONSPIRING TO SMUGGLE WILDLIFE PRODUCTS LIKE IVORY, RHINOCEROS HORN
FROM: U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Canadian Antique Dealer Charged with Trafficking Wildlife
Antique Company President Charged with Smuggling Wildlife Worth More Than $500,000
Guan, the president and owner of an antiques business in Richmond, British Columbia, was arrested on March 29, 2014, after flying from Vancouver to New York and purchasing two endangered black rhinoceros horns from undercover special agents with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service at a storage facility in the Bronx. After purchasing the horns in a storage pod, Guan had the undercover agents drive him and a female accomplice acting as his interpreter to a nearby express mail store where he mailed the horns to an address in Point Roberts, Washington, less than a mile from the Canadian border and 17 miles from his business. Guan labeled the box of black rhino horns as containing “handicrafts” worth $200, even though he had just paid $45,000 for them. Guan indicated that he had people who could drive the horns across the border and that he had done so many times before.
Guan and his co-conspirators allegedly smuggled more than $500,000 of rhino horns and sculptures made from elephant ivory and coral from various U.S. auction houses to Canada by the same method or by having packages mailed directly to Canada with false paperwork and without the required declaration or permits. One part of the criminal scheme was to falsely describe the wildlife in order to conceal Guan’s wildlife smuggling. In the case of a rhino horn purchased in Florida, the Customs paperwork claimed it was a “Wooden Horn” worth $200.
At the same time that Guan was being arrested in New York, wildlife enforcement officers with Environment Canada executed a search warrant at Guan’s antique business in Canada. Environment Canada and Justice Canada are working cooperatively with U.S. investigators and prosecutors. The Guan case is part of “Operation Crash,” a U.S. Fish & Wildlife and Justice Department crackdown on illegal trafficking in rhinoceros horns.
“Illegal wildlife trafficking is a multibillion-dollar business that must be stopped,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Hirsch. “The Justice Department is working vigorously to uphold the laws designed to protect rhinos and elephants and other threatened species from extinction and is working alongside our international partners to bring black-market wildlife traders to justice. We are also very grateful here for the assistance from Canadian authorities.”
“ There is an ever-expanding black market for objects made from endangered species that fuels the devastating and senseless slaughter of noble animals,” said U.S. Attorney Bharara. “The charges levied today are designed to deal a heavy blow to those that are deliberately profiting from the trade in rare and endangered species. ”
“As this case illustrates, the United States plays a key role in the illegal wildlife trade – often as the source of, or transit country for, poached and smuggled wildlife products headed elsewhere in the world,” said Director Ashe. “This makes coordination vital with our international partners as we work together to halt the slaughter of rhinos, elephants and many other imperiled species. We have a long history of collaboration with Environment Canada on wildlife trafficking and other issues, and we appreciate the invaluable assistance they’ve provided in this case.”
Rhinoceros are an herbivore species of prehistoric origin and one of the largest remaining mega-fauna on earth. They have no known predators other than humans. All species of rhinoceros are protected under U.S. and international law. Since 1976, trade in rhinoceros horn has been regulated under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), a treaty signed by over 170 countries around the world to protect fish, wildlife and plants that are or may become imperiled due to the demands of international markets.
Operation Crash is a continuing investigation by the Department of the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), in coordination with the Department of Justice. A “crash” is the term for a herd of rhinoceros. Operation Crash is an ongoing effort to detect, deter and prosecute those engaged in the illegal killing of rhinoceros and the unlawful trafficking of rhinoceros horns. The Guan case was investigated by FWS, the U.S. Attorney’s Office Complex Frauds Unit and the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section with assistance from Environment Canada’s Wildlife Enforcement Directorate. Assistant U.S. Attorney Janis M. Echenberg and Senior Counsel Richard A. Udell of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section are in charge of the prosecution.
An indictment is an allegation based upon a finding of probable cause. A defendant is presumed innocent until convicted. If convicted, Guan faces up to five years in prison for the conspiracy and wildlife charges and up to ten years in prison for the crime of smuggling. Guan could be fined up to $200,000 per count or up to twice the gross gain from the criminal conduct.
Sunday, May 25, 2014
DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY DARBY TESTIFIES ON WILDLIFE TRAFFICKING CRISIS
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
The Escalating International Wildlife Trafficking Crisis: Ecological, Economic, and National Security Issues
Testimony
M. Brooke Darby
Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
Statement Before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittees on African Affairs and East Asian and Pacific Affairs
Washington, DC
May 21, 2014
Chairmen Coons and Cardin, Ranking Members Flake and Rubio, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittees on African Affairs and East Asian and Pacific Affairs, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the threat posed from wildlife trafficking and the efforts of the Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) to address it.
I testify before you today alongside committed champions and long-time supporters of enhancing conservation efforts, improving land management, protecting endangered species, and strengthening law enforcement capacities that safeguard natural resources and prevent and prosecute environmental and wildlife trafficking crimes. And while this may be an area that INL is somewhat new to, you can rest assured that we are now much more actively engaged, taking to heart the call-to-action by both the President and Secretary of State, to leverage all instruments at our disposal to strengthen our partners’ law enforcement and criminal justice capacities to combat wildlife trafficking.
Let me provide some insights into the breadth and scale of the challenge posed by the global illicit trade in wildlife. Increasing demand for illegally traded wildlife products in the last several years has fueled a massive uptick in poaching, particularly in Africa, and growing engagement by sophisticated transnational organized criminal networks, drawn to profits that can rival or in some cases even exceed those derived from drug trafficking. Conservative estimates of $8-10 billion in illicit revenues per year place wildlife trafficking among the top five most lucrative forms of transnational organized crime. In addition to searching out opportunities for high rewards, criminals also exploit environments with low risks of detection and meaningful punishment – and they find that in the illicit wildlife trade where they are able to exploit porous borders, corrupt officials, insufficient enforcement and investigative capacities and penalties, weak legal regimes, and lax financial system oversight.
All of us need to be concerned about the wide-ranging impact of the illegal wildlife trade, and organized criminal organizations’ involvement in it. I’d like to talk about the serious impact this crime has on humans and our security from INL’s perspective:
INL is primarily involved in implementing the enforcement and international cooperation goals of the strategy through programmatic and diplomatic initiatives. We are not complete newcomers to the game -- for over a decade, we have provided wildlife investigative training delivered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as part of our International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) program. But within the last year, with strong support from Congress, we have begun to greatly expand our programs, drawing on our experience in addressing other forms of transnational criminal activity. We have organized our work around four key areas.
First, we will work with interested partners to strengthen legislative frameworks to make wildlife trafficking a serious crime with strong penalties in order to provide investigators and prosecutors the legal tools they need to put the traffickers behind bars.
Second we will improve law enforcement and investigative capabilities – including intelligence, evidence collection and analysis, investigative skills and methods, and collaboration across agencies and governments – with our partner agencies to promote intelligence-led investigations and operations that strive not simply to pick up individual poachers but rather to better understand and begin to dismantle the organizations for which they work.
Third, we will work to build prosecutorial and judicial capacities with our partners. As we have learned, rangers and police will not continue to apprehend the bad guys if they believe prosecutors or judges will just let them go. So as we improve legislative frameworks and offer up new tools, we need to ensure prosecutors and judges know how to use those tools effectively and creatively.
And fourth, we will enhance cross-border law enforcement cooperation, particularly by working with the regional Wildlife Enforcement Networks (WENs) with other agencies. There is much that we need to learn about how wildlife trafficking organizations operate – but we do know that illegal wildlife products often make their way through multiple transit points as they move from supply states to demand markets. So we need to build alliances and processes across borders for sharing information and intelligence and collaborating on operations.
The National Strategy stresses the need to marshal and strategically apply federal resources through a coordinated approach. Our work in these areas will be done on a bilateral and regional basis looking at priority areas and landscapes for U.S. foreign assistance in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. When the President announced the Executive Order to Combat Wildlife Trafficking last July, he also announced that $10 million would support law enforcement efforts in Africa. Those funds, coupled with approximately $6 million in prior year funding, are supporting bilateral INL programming in Kenya and South Africa; regional capacity building efforts in Africa and East Asia and the Pacific, and global programs, including efforts through INTERPOL, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and the World Customs Organizations, all of which are part of the International Consortium for Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC). The approximately $15 million recently directed in FY 2014 International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) funds will enable us to expand efforts begun or piloted using prior year resources, such as training for customs officers at ports of entry, prosecutorial training, and joint capacity building-operational exercises across regions and continents.
INL’s engagement extends beyond assistance programming. We also are tapping into tools developed to address transnational organized crime, to tackle the specific challenge of wildlife trafficking, including the Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program, which Congress authorized in 2013. In November 2013, Secretary Kerry announced the first reward offer under the program of up to $1 million for information leading to the dismantling of the Xaysavang Network. The Xaysavang Network, based in Laos and operating across Africa and Asia, facilitates the illegal trade of endangered elephants, rhinos, and other species.
Through diplomatic outreach and engagement, we are building international consensus around the importance of dismantling wildlife trafficking networks. For example, at the U.N. Crime Commission in April 2013, the United States introduced a successful joint resolution with Peru encouraging governments around the world to treat wildlife trafficking as a “serious crime” pursuant to the U.N. Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. Making it a serious crime unlocks new opportunities for international law enforcement cooperation provided under the Convention, including mutual legal assistance, asset seizure and forfeiture, extradition, and other tools to hold criminals accountable for wildlife crime. The U.N. Economic and Social Council adopted the resolution in July 2013, further elevating wildlife trafficking as a major concern for the United Nations. These measures provide the mandate that we need, as members of a larger body of concerned nations, to harness our collective capabilities to learn more about these trafficking networks, share information, and collaborate on plans and programs that will undermine them.
Another early success to which we can point is a recent month-long global law enforcement cooperative effort, known as “Cobra II,” that we helped to support. Participants from 28 countries, including representatives from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with participation from USAID, executed this global operation in February 2014 to combat wildlife trafficking and poaching which resulted in more than 400 arrests and 350 major seizures of wildlife and wildlife products across Africa, Asia, and the United States. The operation demonstrated to participants the benefits and results that can be achieved by working together and we will seek to build on the positive momentum it generated.
Although we have more to learn about the links that exist between wildlife trafficking organizations and other transnational criminal groups, we do know that wildlife traffickers do not operate in a vacuum. Criminal organizations tend to use the same routes and shipping methods as smugglers of weapons, drugs, and counterfeits. They bribe the same customs officials. They deploy poachers in the same restive regions where terrorists and other criminals may sow instability and conflict and exploit weak institutions and porous borders. Money and corruption are common denominators of all forms of transnational organized crime, and wildlife trafficking is no exception.
INL is looking at ways to connect our anti-corruption and unit vetting programs used effectively in narcotics-producing regions, to support willing governments afflicted by wildlife trafficking. We are also examining the broader use of Presidential Proclamation (PP) 7750, which is used to bar entry into the United States of high-level corrupt officials and their family members, against wildlife traffickers and their enablers.
Following the money is equally important. All illicit criminal networks need money to finance their activities and as illicit funds move through the international financial system, they can be detected and monitored. In addition to exercising leadership within the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), we are promoting and applying tools like asset recovery and forfeiture to combat transnational organized crime and money laundering. Through the FATF style regional body for Eastern and Southern Africa, we are working with international partners to uncover and counter money laundering and other illicit financial flows related to wildlife trafficking. We then will develop capacity building projects to address gaps this study identifies.
Illicit networks undercut the ability of law enforcement to protect citizens, deprive the states of vital revenues, promote corruption, and contribute to bad governance. But as organized crime has evolved and diversified, so has INL. Our programs are tailored to specific and cross cutting threats, including wildlife trafficking, to target the common facilitators of all types of crime.
Thank you, Chairman Coons, Chairman Cardin, and Distinguished Members of the Subcommittees for your attention to and support of our collective efforts to combat wildlife trafficking. I welcome your questions.
I testify before you today alongside committed champions and long-time supporters of enhancing conservation efforts, improving land management, protecting endangered species, and strengthening law enforcement capacities that safeguard natural resources and prevent and prosecute environmental and wildlife trafficking crimes. And while this may be an area that INL is somewhat new to, you can rest assured that we are now much more actively engaged, taking to heart the call-to-action by both the President and Secretary of State, to leverage all instruments at our disposal to strengthen our partners’ law enforcement and criminal justice capacities to combat wildlife trafficking.
Let me provide some insights into the breadth and scale of the challenge posed by the global illicit trade in wildlife. Increasing demand for illegally traded wildlife products in the last several years has fueled a massive uptick in poaching, particularly in Africa, and growing engagement by sophisticated transnational organized criminal networks, drawn to profits that can rival or in some cases even exceed those derived from drug trafficking. Conservative estimates of $8-10 billion in illicit revenues per year place wildlife trafficking among the top five most lucrative forms of transnational organized crime. In addition to searching out opportunities for high rewards, criminals also exploit environments with low risks of detection and meaningful punishment – and they find that in the illicit wildlife trade where they are able to exploit porous borders, corrupt officials, insufficient enforcement and investigative capacities and penalties, weak legal regimes, and lax financial system oversight.
All of us need to be concerned about the wide-ranging impact of the illegal wildlife trade, and organized criminal organizations’ involvement in it. I’d like to talk about the serious impact this crime has on humans and our security from INL’s perspective:
- The high tech weaponry and violent, aggressive tactics now employed by poachers threaten the safety and security of civilian populations, particularly in supply (also known as “range”) states. Park rangers are at special risk and many have been killed trying to protect wildlife.
- The corruption that both fuels, and is fueled by, the illegal wildlife trade undermines good governance and the rule of law, and erodes citizens’ confidence in their government institutions.
- Wildlife trafficking crimes create and exacerbate border insecurity, creating new vulnerabilities that other criminals, terrorists, and militias can exploit.
- The depletion of natural resources, and related corruption, weakens financial stability and economic growth, particularly in countries for which tourism is a major revenue source. Furthermore, illicit trade in illegally harvested marine species threatens food security, potentially undermining political stability in many developing nations.
- Terrorists and militia groups may seize the opportunity to benefit from the wildlife trade. We have some evidence that the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Janjaweed have done so, for example, trading wildlife products for weapons or safe haven.
INL is primarily involved in implementing the enforcement and international cooperation goals of the strategy through programmatic and diplomatic initiatives. We are not complete newcomers to the game -- for over a decade, we have provided wildlife investigative training delivered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as part of our International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) program. But within the last year, with strong support from Congress, we have begun to greatly expand our programs, drawing on our experience in addressing other forms of transnational criminal activity. We have organized our work around four key areas.
First, we will work with interested partners to strengthen legislative frameworks to make wildlife trafficking a serious crime with strong penalties in order to provide investigators and prosecutors the legal tools they need to put the traffickers behind bars.
Second we will improve law enforcement and investigative capabilities – including intelligence, evidence collection and analysis, investigative skills and methods, and collaboration across agencies and governments – with our partner agencies to promote intelligence-led investigations and operations that strive not simply to pick up individual poachers but rather to better understand and begin to dismantle the organizations for which they work.
Third, we will work to build prosecutorial and judicial capacities with our partners. As we have learned, rangers and police will not continue to apprehend the bad guys if they believe prosecutors or judges will just let them go. So as we improve legislative frameworks and offer up new tools, we need to ensure prosecutors and judges know how to use those tools effectively and creatively.
And fourth, we will enhance cross-border law enforcement cooperation, particularly by working with the regional Wildlife Enforcement Networks (WENs) with other agencies. There is much that we need to learn about how wildlife trafficking organizations operate – but we do know that illegal wildlife products often make their way through multiple transit points as they move from supply states to demand markets. So we need to build alliances and processes across borders for sharing information and intelligence and collaborating on operations.
The National Strategy stresses the need to marshal and strategically apply federal resources through a coordinated approach. Our work in these areas will be done on a bilateral and regional basis looking at priority areas and landscapes for U.S. foreign assistance in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. When the President announced the Executive Order to Combat Wildlife Trafficking last July, he also announced that $10 million would support law enforcement efforts in Africa. Those funds, coupled with approximately $6 million in prior year funding, are supporting bilateral INL programming in Kenya and South Africa; regional capacity building efforts in Africa and East Asia and the Pacific, and global programs, including efforts through INTERPOL, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and the World Customs Organizations, all of which are part of the International Consortium for Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC). The approximately $15 million recently directed in FY 2014 International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) funds will enable us to expand efforts begun or piloted using prior year resources, such as training for customs officers at ports of entry, prosecutorial training, and joint capacity building-operational exercises across regions and continents.
INL’s engagement extends beyond assistance programming. We also are tapping into tools developed to address transnational organized crime, to tackle the specific challenge of wildlife trafficking, including the Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program, which Congress authorized in 2013. In November 2013, Secretary Kerry announced the first reward offer under the program of up to $1 million for information leading to the dismantling of the Xaysavang Network. The Xaysavang Network, based in Laos and operating across Africa and Asia, facilitates the illegal trade of endangered elephants, rhinos, and other species.
Through diplomatic outreach and engagement, we are building international consensus around the importance of dismantling wildlife trafficking networks. For example, at the U.N. Crime Commission in April 2013, the United States introduced a successful joint resolution with Peru encouraging governments around the world to treat wildlife trafficking as a “serious crime” pursuant to the U.N. Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. Making it a serious crime unlocks new opportunities for international law enforcement cooperation provided under the Convention, including mutual legal assistance, asset seizure and forfeiture, extradition, and other tools to hold criminals accountable for wildlife crime. The U.N. Economic and Social Council adopted the resolution in July 2013, further elevating wildlife trafficking as a major concern for the United Nations. These measures provide the mandate that we need, as members of a larger body of concerned nations, to harness our collective capabilities to learn more about these trafficking networks, share information, and collaborate on plans and programs that will undermine them.
Another early success to which we can point is a recent month-long global law enforcement cooperative effort, known as “Cobra II,” that we helped to support. Participants from 28 countries, including representatives from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with participation from USAID, executed this global operation in February 2014 to combat wildlife trafficking and poaching which resulted in more than 400 arrests and 350 major seizures of wildlife and wildlife products across Africa, Asia, and the United States. The operation demonstrated to participants the benefits and results that can be achieved by working together and we will seek to build on the positive momentum it generated.
Although we have more to learn about the links that exist between wildlife trafficking organizations and other transnational criminal groups, we do know that wildlife traffickers do not operate in a vacuum. Criminal organizations tend to use the same routes and shipping methods as smugglers of weapons, drugs, and counterfeits. They bribe the same customs officials. They deploy poachers in the same restive regions where terrorists and other criminals may sow instability and conflict and exploit weak institutions and porous borders. Money and corruption are common denominators of all forms of transnational organized crime, and wildlife trafficking is no exception.
INL is looking at ways to connect our anti-corruption and unit vetting programs used effectively in narcotics-producing regions, to support willing governments afflicted by wildlife trafficking. We are also examining the broader use of Presidential Proclamation (PP) 7750, which is used to bar entry into the United States of high-level corrupt officials and their family members, against wildlife traffickers and their enablers.
Following the money is equally important. All illicit criminal networks need money to finance their activities and as illicit funds move through the international financial system, they can be detected and monitored. In addition to exercising leadership within the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), we are promoting and applying tools like asset recovery and forfeiture to combat transnational organized crime and money laundering. Through the FATF style regional body for Eastern and Southern Africa, we are working with international partners to uncover and counter money laundering and other illicit financial flows related to wildlife trafficking. We then will develop capacity building projects to address gaps this study identifies.
Illicit networks undercut the ability of law enforcement to protect citizens, deprive the states of vital revenues, promote corruption, and contribute to bad governance. But as organized crime has evolved and diversified, so has INL. Our programs are tailored to specific and cross cutting threats, including wildlife trafficking, to target the common facilitators of all types of crime.
Thank you, Chairman Coons, Chairman Cardin, and Distinguished Members of the Subcommittees for your attention to and support of our collective efforts to combat wildlife trafficking. I welcome your questions.
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL'S REMARKS ON ILLEGAL TRAFFICKING IN WILDLIFE
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Opening Statement of the United States at the 23rd UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice
Remarks
Todd Robinson
Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
Vienna, Austria
May 12, 2014
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the floor. The United States joins our distinguished colleagues in congratulating you on your election, and my delegation looks forward to a productive week under your leadership.
The United States delegation would like to associate ourselves with the remarks of Ambassador Galuškova and others, regarding our deep sympathy over the tragic deaths of Clément Gorrissen and Simon Davis, in Puntland, Somalia, and of Luis Maria Duarte, in Afghanistan. These men were dedicated public servants who worked tirelessly to help the governments of Somalia and Afghanistan to build peace, security, and the rule of law. They were respected and admired by their American colleagues who worked with them and we will miss them. The Government of the United States extends its sincere condolences to their families and loved ones.
Normally at the opening of these Commissions, delegations call attention to urgent priorities in need of remedy, with heavy emphasis on gaps in the international community’s collective response. This time, I’d like to begin on a different note, and recognize progress that has been achieved over the past year in addressing the theme of last year’s Commission—confronting the challenge of illegal trafficking in wildlife.
The United States is encouraged by how many governments have taken action on this issue since we last met, and by the spirit of cooperation among countries to reduce demand for these illegal products and prosecute the organized criminal networks involved. Since our last meeting, in February, President Barack Obama released our government’s “National Strategy to Combat Wildlife Trafficking” with three key pillars: reducing demand for illegally traded wildlife, strengthening domestic and global enforcement, and strengthening international cooperation. The National Strategy also closed loopholes in U.S. law to achieve a near complete ban on the commercial trade of elephant ivory in the United States. In November 2013, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced the first reward offer under my government’s new Transnational Organized Crime Reward Program. The reward offers up to $1 million for information leading to the dismantling of the Xaysavang Network - a major transnational crime syndicate facilitating wildlife trafficking across Africa and Asia. Much work still needs to be done, and the trafficking in threatened and endangered species remains a crisis that needs urgent attention from all governments. But we should recognize that this Commission has played an important role in generating positive change, and we need to build on this momentum.
This year, to further advance the Commission’s work, the United States has introduced a resolution in partnership with Norway to encourage additional cooperation against illicit trafficking in timber and forest products. Our resolution highlights the nexus between trafficking in timber and corruption, and encourages additional international cooperation, including cross-border information sharing and investigative efforts to counter trafficking in timber. On behalf of our Norwegian partners, we invite all delegations to take part in an informal meeting to discuss the resolution at 2:30 today in Room M4. We also invite all Commission participants to attend a U.S.-sponsored side-event on international cooperation to combat criminal elements in illicit trafficking in timber and forest products, scheduled to take place today from 1:00 to 2:00 pm.
Mr. Chairman, I would now like to turn my remarks to this Commission’s focus on International Cooperation in Criminal Matters. This broad topic covers much of the mandate of this Commission, and the United States looks forward to hearing examples of good practices and successful strategies for extending and improving criminal justice cooperation across borders from our partners. For our part, the U.S. delegation will describe our experiences with cooperation on mutual legal assistance, with particular emphasis on the critical role of effective national central authorities. The United States will also describe our work to provide technical assistance to those seeking to enhance legal frameworks and mechanisms to facilitate mutual legal assistance. We look forward to UNODC’s event at 1pm tomorrow to describe its efforts to promote regional networks of central authorities, including the West Africa Central Authorities and Prosecutors Network, a program my government is pleased to support.
Thank you very much for this opportunity.
The United States delegation would like to associate ourselves with the remarks of Ambassador Galuškova and others, regarding our deep sympathy over the tragic deaths of Clément Gorrissen and Simon Davis, in Puntland, Somalia, and of Luis Maria Duarte, in Afghanistan. These men were dedicated public servants who worked tirelessly to help the governments of Somalia and Afghanistan to build peace, security, and the rule of law. They were respected and admired by their American colleagues who worked with them and we will miss them. The Government of the United States extends its sincere condolences to their families and loved ones.
Normally at the opening of these Commissions, delegations call attention to urgent priorities in need of remedy, with heavy emphasis on gaps in the international community’s collective response. This time, I’d like to begin on a different note, and recognize progress that has been achieved over the past year in addressing the theme of last year’s Commission—confronting the challenge of illegal trafficking in wildlife.
The United States is encouraged by how many governments have taken action on this issue since we last met, and by the spirit of cooperation among countries to reduce demand for these illegal products and prosecute the organized criminal networks involved. Since our last meeting, in February, President Barack Obama released our government’s “National Strategy to Combat Wildlife Trafficking” with three key pillars: reducing demand for illegally traded wildlife, strengthening domestic and global enforcement, and strengthening international cooperation. The National Strategy also closed loopholes in U.S. law to achieve a near complete ban on the commercial trade of elephant ivory in the United States. In November 2013, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced the first reward offer under my government’s new Transnational Organized Crime Reward Program. The reward offers up to $1 million for information leading to the dismantling of the Xaysavang Network - a major transnational crime syndicate facilitating wildlife trafficking across Africa and Asia. Much work still needs to be done, and the trafficking in threatened and endangered species remains a crisis that needs urgent attention from all governments. But we should recognize that this Commission has played an important role in generating positive change, and we need to build on this momentum.
This year, to further advance the Commission’s work, the United States has introduced a resolution in partnership with Norway to encourage additional cooperation against illicit trafficking in timber and forest products. Our resolution highlights the nexus between trafficking in timber and corruption, and encourages additional international cooperation, including cross-border information sharing and investigative efforts to counter trafficking in timber. On behalf of our Norwegian partners, we invite all delegations to take part in an informal meeting to discuss the resolution at 2:30 today in Room M4. We also invite all Commission participants to attend a U.S.-sponsored side-event on international cooperation to combat criminal elements in illicit trafficking in timber and forest products, scheduled to take place today from 1:00 to 2:00 pm.
Mr. Chairman, I would now like to turn my remarks to this Commission’s focus on International Cooperation in Criminal Matters. This broad topic covers much of the mandate of this Commission, and the United States looks forward to hearing examples of good practices and successful strategies for extending and improving criminal justice cooperation across borders from our partners. For our part, the U.S. delegation will describe our experiences with cooperation on mutual legal assistance, with particular emphasis on the critical role of effective national central authorities. The United States will also describe our work to provide technical assistance to those seeking to enhance legal frameworks and mechanisms to facilitate mutual legal assistance. We look forward to UNODC’s event at 1pm tomorrow to describe its efforts to promote regional networks of central authorities, including the West Africa Central Authorities and Prosecutors Network, a program my government is pleased to support.
Thank you very much for this opportunity.
Monday, May 12, 2014
STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL'S CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY ON INTERNATIONAL CRIME
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
United States Assistance to Combat Transnational Crime
William R. Brownfield
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
Statement before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs
Washington, DC
May 7, 2014
If I were sitting before you 35 years ago, when the predecessor to INL—the Bureau of International Narcotics Matters—was first established and you asked me what transnational organized crime would look like in the year 2014, I might have informed you of the violent and hierarchical structure of the drug cartels and various mafias and have foretold the success of U.S. counternarcotics assistance to Colombia or the expansion of our anti-drug trafficking efforts worldwide. I might have accurately predicted the efforts of some cartels to move across the Caribbean and destabilize communities across the hemisphere. I might have surmised that, criminals being opportunists, they would diversify and seek out not only new markets but also new forms of criminality with minimal risk and high rewards. And I would have assumed—accurately—that certain elements of illicit trafficking would remain the same regardless of the product being trafficking: demand for the product, which produces a market; a producer at the source; the need for a logistics network to move the product across international borders, a system to market or distribute the product at its destination, and the need to convert the product into cash or some other marketable commodity usable in the licit market. But I could not have predicted the extent to which globalization, coupled with dramatic improvements in technology, would turn criminal organizations that had once had only a domestic or regional impact into networked enterprises posing threats to our and our partners interests across the globe.
Today’s reality is that criminal and illicit networks have expanded their tentacles to all parts of the world, corrupting public and market-based institutions alike. Their activities threaten not only the interdependent commercial, transportation, and transactional systems that facilitate free trade and the movement of people throughout the global economy, but are jeopardizing governance structures, economic development, security, and supply chain integrity. Their penetration of state institutions and financial and security sectors is particularly concerning.
Recognizing the expanding size, scope, and influence of transnational organized crime and its impact on U.S. and international security and governance, in July 2011, the White House released theStrategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime. The Strategy calls on all departments and agencies to "build, balance, and integrate the tools of American power to combat transnational organized crime…and urge our foreign partners to do the same." The Strategy also calls for the U.S. government and our international partners to work together to combat transnational illicit networks, and take that fight to the next level by breaking their corruptive power, attacking their financial underpinnings, stripping them of their illicit wealth, and severing their access to the financial system.
With our diplomatic reach and foreign assistance authorities, INL is strengthening partner nation capacity to deal with these emerging transnational criminal threats including by combating corruption and targeting the illicit wealth of criminal entrepreneurs. INL’s programs promote regional capacity-building to mitigate the famous "balloon effect" we saw in South America in the 1980s and 1990s, whereby criminal groups jump from one country to another as pressure was applied. Through the Central America Regional Security Initiative, the Merida Initiative, the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative, the West Africa Cooperative Security Initiative, and other programs you have supported, we are focused on coordinating investigations, supporting prosecutions, and facilitating the sharing of information across borders.
Many of the approaches and methods we have refined over the past three decades to reduce the harm of narcotics trafficking are transferable to new and urgent threats – and I will focus on one such threat today -- wildlife trafficking. It is fueled by high demand for wildlife products, high profits -- an ounce of rhino horn is worth more than gold, cocaine, or heroin in weight -- and low risk for detection or meaningful punishment. Its impact on the planet’s natural resources is as obvious as it is devastating – entire animal species are at risk. But even setting aside the risk to wildlife, the United States has cause to be seriously concerned about this criminal enterprise: the corruption that it both encourages and benefits from undermines good governance, the rule of law, and citizens’ confidence in their government institutions; the high tech weaponry and aggressive tactics used by poachers and the syndicates and corrupt officials that support them threaten civilian populations; the crime creates and exacerbates border insecurity; wildlife trafficking can weaken financial stability and economic growth, particularly in countries for which tourism is a major revenue source; and we have seen some evidence of involvement by terrorist entities and armed groups.
For these reasons, we need to address wildlife trafficking not only as a conservation issue but also a national security issue. The President issued an Executive Order calling for a whole of government response to combat wildlife trafficking on July 1, 2013 and on February, 11, 2014, the White House released a National Strategy for Combating Wildlife Trafficking. The Strategy calls on agencies and departments to strengthen domestic and global enforcement, reduce demand for illegal wildlife products, and build international cooperation and public-private partnerships.
INL is playing a significant programmatic and diplomatic role in implementing the National Strategy. For over a decade, we have provided wildlife investigative training delivered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as part of our International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) program. Within the last year, with strong support of this Committee and this Congress, we have begun to greatly expand our assistance, drawing on our experience in addressing other forms of transnational criminal activity. We have organized our work abroad around four key areas that support the enforcement and international cooperation goals of the National Strategy.
First, we will strengthen legislative frameworks to make wildlife trafficking a serious crime with strong penalties to give investigators and prosecutors the legal tools they need to put the traffickers behind bars.
Second, we will improve law enforcement and investigative capabilities -- including intelligence, evidence collection and analysis, investigative skills and methods, and collaboration across agencies and governments – to promote intelligence-led investigations and operations that strive not simply to pick up individual poachers but rather to better understand and begin to dismantle the organizations for which they work.
Third, we will build prosecutorial and judicial capacities. As we have learned, rangers and police will not continue to pick up the bad guys if they believe prosecutors or judges will just let them go so, as we improve legislative frameworks and offer up new tools, we need to ensure prosecutors and judges know how to use those tools effectively and creatively.
And fourth, we will enhance cross-border law enforcement cooperation, particularly by working with the regional Wildlife Enforcement Networks (WENs). There is much that we do not know about how wildlife trafficking organizations operate – but we do know that illegal wildlife products often make their way through multiple transit points as they move from supply – or "range" – states to demand markets. So we need to build alliances and processes across borders for sharing information and intelligence and collaborating on operations.
Our work in these areas will be done on a bilateral basis. A portion of our overall assistance is dedicated towards our programming in Kenya ($3 million in FY13) and South Africa ($3M in FY 2013); regionally in Africa ($4 million in FY 2013) and Asia ($1.45 million in FY 2012); and globally ($4.3 million in FY 2012) through organizations including INTERPOL, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and the World Customs Organizations, who are part of the International Consortium for Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC). Using $15 million in FY 2014 funds, we will expand efforts begun or piloted using prior year resources, such as training for customs officers at ports of entry, prosecutorial training, and joint capacity building-operational exercises across continents.
INL is also approaching the wildlife trafficking problem in new ways. We are using new tools such as the Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program, which Congress, with your support, authorized in 2013. In November 2013, Secretary Kerry announced the first reward offer under the program of up to $1 million for information leading to the dismantling of the Xaysavang Network. The Xaysavang Network, based in Laos and operating across Africa and Asia, facilitates the illegal trade of endangered elephants, rhinos, and other species. This reward offer provides us with an additional tool to dismantle wildlife trafficking networks and bring its leaders and members to justice.
We are also using our diplomatic tools to build an international consensus around the importance of dismantling wildlife trafficking networks. For example, at the UN Crime Commission in April 2013, the United States introduced a successful joint resolution with Peru encouraging governments around the world to treat wildlife trafficking as a "serious crime" pursuant to the U.N. Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. Making it a serious crime unlocks new opportunities for international law enforcement cooperation, provided under the Convention, including mutual legal assistance, asset seizure and forfeiture, extradition, and other tools to hold criminals accountable for wildlife crime. The U.N. Economic and Social Council adopted the resolution in July 2013, further elevating wildlife trafficking as a major concern for the United Nations. These measures provide the mandate that we need, as members of a larger body of concerned nations, to harness our collective capabilities to learn more about these trafficking networks, share information, and collaborate on plans and programs that will undermine them.
The resolution was one of several early successes to which we can point. Another is a month-long global law enforcement cooperative effort that we helped to support in February known as "Cobra II." Participants from 28 countries, including representatives from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of Justice, executed a global operation to combat wildlife trafficking and poaching that resulted in more than 400 arrests and 350 major seizures of wildlife and wildlife products across Africa and Asia and the U.S.
Although we have more to learn about the links that exist between wildlife trafficking organizations and other transnational criminal groups, we do know that wildlife traffickers do not operate in a vacuum. Like any legal enterprise that seeks to diversify its portfolio, criminal organizations tend to use the same routes and shipping methods as smugglers of weapons, drugs, and counterfeits. They bribe the same customs officials. They deploy poachers in the same restive regions where terrorists and other criminals may sow instability and conflict and exploit weak institutions and porous borders. Money and corruption are common denominators of all forms of transnational organized crime, and wildlife trafficking is no exception.
Corruption greases the wheels of illicit trade in everything from counterfeits to ivory. In the Sahel-Sahara region of Africa, for example, collusion between smugglers and state officials has eroded state authority and created lucrative funding channels for terrorists, militias, and criminal groups. INL is looking at ways to link up our anti-corruption and unit vetting programs used effectively in narcotics-producing regions, to support willing governments afflicted by illicit wildlife trade.
Following the money is equally important. All illicit criminal networks need money to finance their activities and as illicit funds move through the international financial system, they can be detected and monitored. In addition to exercising leadership within the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), we are promoting and applying tools like asset recovery and forfeiture to combat transnational organized crime and money laundering. Through the FATF style regional body for Eastern and Southern Africa, we are working with international partners to uncover and counter money laundering and other illicit financial flows related to wildlife trafficking. When it is finished, our capacity building projects will address the gaps identified.
Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member Lowey, and distinguished Members, there is no doubt that transnational organized crime presents a growing and profound threat to international security. Illicit networks undercut the ability of law enforcement to protect citizens, deprive the state of vital revenues, promote corruption, and both thrive on and contribute to bad governance. But as organized crime has evolved and diversified, so has INL. Our programs are both tailored to specific threats, such as wildlife trafficking, and cross-cutting, to target the common facilitators of all types of crime.
Thank you, Chairwoman Granger and Ranking Member Lowey. I welcome your questions.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
ASSISTANT SECRETARY BROWNFIELD'S REMARKS AT WILDLIFE CRIMINOLOGY SYMPOSIUM
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Remarks at the Wildlife Criminology Symposium
Remarks
William R. Brownfield
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
World Bank,
Washington, DC
April 23, 2014
Thank you very much, Mr. Magrath and Mr. McCarthy. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to open with my own personal note of thanks, not just to the two gentlemen seated up here with me, but to the entire World Bank. I say this with sincerity. The World Bank has done excellent work in managing, leading, and in many ways, pioneering the effort worldwide to address the crisis of illegal wildlife trafficking. I have this on the best authority on the entire planet – the United States Ambassador to Thailand, a woman to whom I have the unmitigated pleasure of being married for the past 30 years -- and her assessment this morning is that no organization has been more active and more effective in this effort in South East Asia than the World Bank.
Ladies and gentlemen, you may be asking yourselves the question, “What is Mr. Brownfield, a man who is known in the State Department as Mr. Drugs and Thugs, doing here to discuss the issue of international wildlife conservation, protection, and preservation?” My message for all of you is that I am here because there is a very important connection between what I do and what those in the conservation community do. We are talking about two communities that for the past 100, 1000, or 5000 years have not actually worked together a great deal. The conservation community is comprised of men and women who have done extraordinarily effective and noble work in protecting and preserving not dozens, not scores, but hundreds of species of life on our planet that would otherwise be as extinct today as the dinosaurs. To them, we all owe a tremendous debt of gratitude. On the other hand, there is the law enforcement community -- a community that while not traditionally dedicated to the conservation and preservation of species, is very dedicated and quite talented at the process by which we combat and eventually defeat criminal trafficking organizations. Our challenge, ladies and gentlemen – and what I submit to you is the unspoken theme of this symposium - is how to make these two communities work effectively together. That is our challenge for the 21st century.
I know why I am doing this. I am doing this because two and a half years ago a woman looked at me with very firm eyes and said to me, “Brownfield, you are going to do counter-wildlife trafficking, whether you like it or not.” Her name was Hillary Rodham Clinton and I did what you would expect any Assistant Secretary of State to do under those circumstances -- I said ‘yes Ma’am, I will get right on it.’ And if any of you are wondering whether her departure and the arrival of her successor generated any change in this regard, may I offer you a personal anecdote? The only conversation that I have had with John Kerry that was, shall I say, “pointed,” over the last 14 months has been about how fast I was moving in order to make progress on the issue of wildlife trafficking. So that is why I am here.
Why are you here? I offer the following suggestions. One, you are here because if you did not come or did not focus on this issue, hundreds of species of our planet would be dead, eliminated forever, before this century is out. And second, law enforcers are now dealing with a criminal enterprise that is generating perhaps as much as $10 billion in criminal proceeds every year. Ten billion, ladies and gentlemen, that begins to be real money. You might actually want to begin to pay attention to an enterprise that is moving in an illegal and illicit manner, corrupting institutions and governments to the tune of $10 billion a year.
Ladies and gentlemen, I, like Mr. McCarthy, do not claim to be an expert on wildlife conservation or even on wildlife trafficking. I do think I know something about trafficking in general, and I know that there are certain elements common to each and every one of the trafficking industries. Whether it is cocaine and heroin, firearms, people, cut flowers, or wildlife, I know that first, in every case; there is a demand for the product, which produces a market. In every case, there will be a producer at the source region. Perhaps that producer is growing the product. Perhaps that producer is manufacturing the product. Perhaps that producer is butchering the product in order to traffic it. I know that every trafficking organization develops a logistics network – normally an extremely sophisticated logistics network, because it must move a product from one country across numerous national borders to get to the final market, and it must do so in an illicit manner. Every trafficked product eventually has a retail marketing system at the country of destination. And finally every trafficking network has a financial system that permits those involved in the enterprise eventually to convert their product into some form of cash or other marketable commodity that they can use in the open and licit market. This, law enforcers, is the challenge that we confront as we move down the road toward combatting illegal wildlife trafficking; while every product is different, there are not that many differences between how we will attack this problem and how we attack the problem of drugs or trafficking in persons or trafficking in firearms.
From the law enforcement perspective, we are not at a bad starting point. We do have international conventions, foremost among them CITES, but others as well, that give us the international authority or basis to cooperate and attack this problem. We have certain existing international organizations which have taken on this responsibility, such as Interpol and its regional subgroups, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the World Customs Organization, even ICCWC, as Leonard laid out. These international organizations or groupings give us natural allies and umbrellas beneath which we can operate. We have regional organizations that have taken on the mission: the OECD, APEC for the Pacific nations, ASEAN specifically for Southeast Asia, and the UN Crime Commission. We are not starting at point zero. Man has walked this path before us and we can take advantage of some of the institutions, the infrastructure, and the architecture that has already been built for us.
For those of us who are from the United States of America, and specifically the United States Government, we have a new weapon as of February of this year, when the President’s new National Strategy for Combatting Wildlife Trafficking came online. This Strategy is easily available online to anyone who may choose to access it.
The President’s National Strategy offers three areas of focus: first, strengthening enforcement of laws and regulations. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what I do for a living. I support law enforcement around the world.
Second, reducing demand for illegally trafficked wildlife. That, to a very considerable extent, is what the conservation community does for a living. However, I do predict that demand will drop rather substantially if, for instance, we tell most individuals that they could be sent to prison for 20 years for buying a rhino horn. I predict that the demand for rhino horn just might diminish a little bit as a result of law enforcement efforts.
The third area laid out in this strategy is building greater international and domestic cooperation. And, that is what both the conservation and the law enforcement communities do.
Now, despite the fact that I am widely referred to in the State Department as “drugs and thugs,” I am actually the Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, or INL. We have $15 million that we are putting to wildlife trafficking in 2014. And, without going into detail, I am going to divide it into two basic categories. One, we are processing roughly $5 million through some of these international organizations that I just laid out for you. They have already developed programs that are transnational in scope and address the wildlife trafficking issue in an entire region. They need support, they need funds, they need resources. We are trying to provide some of that for them.
The remaining $10 million or so is going into programs with individual countries and governments. This is heavily focused at this time on Africa, and we will have cooperative and close programs with the Governments of Kenya and the Republic of South Africa. Some of the $10 million will be available for other regional programs and cooperation in southern Africa.
We have organized our work on this issue around four basic categories. The first is what we call “legislative framework.” The principle behind this is amazingly simple: it is very difficult to prosecute someone for wildlife trafficking if there is no law on the books that makes it a criminal offense. Judges get annoyed when prosecutors bring cases before them and the prosecutors cannot explain what law has been violated by the defendant. And, believe it or not, in many countries and regions around the world, there are not existing statutes on the books criminalizing this sort of activity or, in some cases; it is criminalized to such a minimal extent that it becomes the equivalent of a traffic offense or a failure to pay parking tickets. Creating the legislative framework must be the first plank in a successful strategy of combatting wildlife trafficking.
Our second organizational concept is support for law enforcement. In the United States of America, this is largely a ranger’s function, though not exclusively. The more we get into prosecutions, the more state and local law enforcement will become engaged, but trying to stop poachers and traffickers at the point of infraction is an expanded ranger function. By expanded, I mean that what these poor guys have to deal with are groups of people armed to the level of an infantry platoon – that degree of firepower. The prospect of coming in and enforcing the law with a nightstick and possibly a 9mm pistol puts local law enforcement in an extraordinarily difficult position. They need training, they need equipment, and in some instances, they need weaponry. That must be part of our challenge.
Our third organizational category includes prosecutors and courts. As you can well imagine, if we have identified them, arrested them, and brought them to court, but a prosecutor has no experience whatsoever on how to prosecute this particular type of crime, then we are not likely to have success. There is nothing that will kill a strategy and a policy more quickly than two or three losing cases that send the message out to everyone in the trafficking industry that “they can’t touch us even if they get us to court.”
Our fourth organizational category is cross-border cooperation. We do it through something we call wildlife enforcement networks – WENS. The principle behind this initiative is extremely simple. It is that governments that are neighbors or at least in the same region as each other stand to benefit from sharing intelligence and information and notifying each other about trafficking groups that seem to be moving across frontiers and borders. At times, regional partners might even plan and cooperate on joint operations and efforts. I can assure you that sophisticated wildlife trafficking organizations know exactly where the borders are located and know precisely how to take advantage of the border if country or government X is enforcing and government Y is not enforcing.
That is the plan. Has there been an impact? I would suggest that there has been. Let me offer three examples from the INL anti-wildlife trafficking initiative. First, recently, 28 governments and their law enforcement communities cooperated for one month in an exercise called COBRA II. This involved law enforcement communities and organizations from Asia, Africa, and North America. What did they accomplish in one month? More than 400 arrests and 350 seizures of illegally trafficked wildlife - and they learned in that month how to do it. They learned lessons from other law enforcement organizations as to what worked and what did not work. They also learned how to communicate with one another and learned new tactics, techniques, and technologies.
Second, in April 2013, the United Nations Crime Commission met and - with the eventual sponsorship of 20 different governments - passed a resolution that stated that wildlife trafficking is a “serious crime” in the United Nations system. Now, ladies and gentlemen, in UN speak, that is about as tough as you can get. They have given the tool and the weapon to any government that is prepared to take on the challenge, by saying the United Nations system and the world’s global community says that this act is a serious crime.
Third and finally, in November of last year, the government for which I work issued its first ever reward offer of the Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program. Under the authority created by the President of the United States and supporting our Transnational Organized Crime Strategy, this reward program was designed to fill the gap between counterterrorism on one side and counternarcotics on the other side by creating the authority to offer rewards for the most serious participants in transnational organized crime. Who was the very first named suspected criminal under this authority? Ladies and gentleman, it was the organization known as the Xaysavang Network, under the leadership, we believe, of Mr. Keosavang, a citizen of Laos. We believe this organization is perhaps one of the world’s largest wildlife trafficking organizations. They traffic product from Asia and Africa in search of markets around the world.
We have offered $1 million to anyone who assists in taking down this trafficking network. It is symbolic, I acknowledge, but it is important symbolism to say that at the first opportunity we had to identify a transnational criminal organization and to put real money behind its dismantlement, we selected a wildlife trafficking organization. May I say to anyone in the Xaysavang network who may be listening today or in the future that this reward offer still stands. There is no rock beneath which you can hide; no tree behind which you may conceal yourself that will make that $1 million go away.
Ladies and gentlemen, may I mention one other program? I believe there are some academics in this room and I would like to draw you in to this conversation as well. There is a program that the State Department has been managing for several years. It’s kind of a cool program that we call the Diplomacy Lab. It works on the following concept. Neither the Department of State nor any other foreign ministry in the world has so many resources, so many people, so much money that it can do all of the research and analysis that it requires with its own employees. We want to draw in the academic world to this effort. We want to allow them the opportunity, whether they are undergraduate or graduate students or tenured professors, to do research and work that will have a direct, real-world impact on what we are doing. We identify areas and invite research and analysis in those areas. We had excellent success with this in areas related to my line of work, including corrections, prison management, community policing, and tribal courts. There have been a half-dozen of these sorts of research efforts which we absorb in the INL bureau, integrate into our programs and then attempt to apply in genuine programs in many countries around the world. May I suggest to you, academics, to look to the year 2014 for the opportunity to engage in several of these projects and programs that are related to illicit wildlife trafficking?
The problem of wildlife trafficking is not going to be solved today or even this year. It has taken us centuries and perhaps even millennia to get into this problem. It is going to take us some years as a human race to solve it. Yet we will solve the problem, step by step. We will do it together as two communities: a community that is dedicated to conservation and preservation and a community that is dedicated to the enforcement of our nations’ and our planet’s laws. We will do it because we can. We will do it because we must.
Leonard mentioned in his remarks the sound of a lioness mourning the loss of its cub. I come from the west Texas panhandle. I can assure you that I have never heard that sound. I hope I never do. But there is one sound of a mother mourning that, I suggest to you, I would not mind hearing at all. That would be the sound of a homo sapien mourning the departure of her poacher son as he begins several years of incarceration following his conviction and sentencing for wildlife trafficking. That is a vision that I would not mind associating myself with, because the more of that sort of mourning we hear, the less mourning we will hear from lionesses who have lost their cubs. Someday, if we do our jobs right and well, perhaps we’ll hear neither of those two sorts of mourning. Neither the lioness nor the elephant nor the rhino mother, mourning the loss of its young, nor the homo sapien mother mourning the departure of her poacher son. When that day comes, we will have succeeded.
I thank you very much; I look forward to further discussion.
Ladies and gentlemen, you may be asking yourselves the question, “What is Mr. Brownfield, a man who is known in the State Department as Mr. Drugs and Thugs, doing here to discuss the issue of international wildlife conservation, protection, and preservation?” My message for all of you is that I am here because there is a very important connection between what I do and what those in the conservation community do. We are talking about two communities that for the past 100, 1000, or 5000 years have not actually worked together a great deal. The conservation community is comprised of men and women who have done extraordinarily effective and noble work in protecting and preserving not dozens, not scores, but hundreds of species of life on our planet that would otherwise be as extinct today as the dinosaurs. To them, we all owe a tremendous debt of gratitude. On the other hand, there is the law enforcement community -- a community that while not traditionally dedicated to the conservation and preservation of species, is very dedicated and quite talented at the process by which we combat and eventually defeat criminal trafficking organizations. Our challenge, ladies and gentlemen – and what I submit to you is the unspoken theme of this symposium - is how to make these two communities work effectively together. That is our challenge for the 21st century.
I know why I am doing this. I am doing this because two and a half years ago a woman looked at me with very firm eyes and said to me, “Brownfield, you are going to do counter-wildlife trafficking, whether you like it or not.” Her name was Hillary Rodham Clinton and I did what you would expect any Assistant Secretary of State to do under those circumstances -- I said ‘yes Ma’am, I will get right on it.’ And if any of you are wondering whether her departure and the arrival of her successor generated any change in this regard, may I offer you a personal anecdote? The only conversation that I have had with John Kerry that was, shall I say, “pointed,” over the last 14 months has been about how fast I was moving in order to make progress on the issue of wildlife trafficking. So that is why I am here.
Why are you here? I offer the following suggestions. One, you are here because if you did not come or did not focus on this issue, hundreds of species of our planet would be dead, eliminated forever, before this century is out. And second, law enforcers are now dealing with a criminal enterprise that is generating perhaps as much as $10 billion in criminal proceeds every year. Ten billion, ladies and gentlemen, that begins to be real money. You might actually want to begin to pay attention to an enterprise that is moving in an illegal and illicit manner, corrupting institutions and governments to the tune of $10 billion a year.
Ladies and gentlemen, I, like Mr. McCarthy, do not claim to be an expert on wildlife conservation or even on wildlife trafficking. I do think I know something about trafficking in general, and I know that there are certain elements common to each and every one of the trafficking industries. Whether it is cocaine and heroin, firearms, people, cut flowers, or wildlife, I know that first, in every case; there is a demand for the product, which produces a market. In every case, there will be a producer at the source region. Perhaps that producer is growing the product. Perhaps that producer is manufacturing the product. Perhaps that producer is butchering the product in order to traffic it. I know that every trafficking organization develops a logistics network – normally an extremely sophisticated logistics network, because it must move a product from one country across numerous national borders to get to the final market, and it must do so in an illicit manner. Every trafficked product eventually has a retail marketing system at the country of destination. And finally every trafficking network has a financial system that permits those involved in the enterprise eventually to convert their product into some form of cash or other marketable commodity that they can use in the open and licit market. This, law enforcers, is the challenge that we confront as we move down the road toward combatting illegal wildlife trafficking; while every product is different, there are not that many differences between how we will attack this problem and how we attack the problem of drugs or trafficking in persons or trafficking in firearms.
From the law enforcement perspective, we are not at a bad starting point. We do have international conventions, foremost among them CITES, but others as well, that give us the international authority or basis to cooperate and attack this problem. We have certain existing international organizations which have taken on this responsibility, such as Interpol and its regional subgroups, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the World Customs Organization, even ICCWC, as Leonard laid out. These international organizations or groupings give us natural allies and umbrellas beneath which we can operate. We have regional organizations that have taken on the mission: the OECD, APEC for the Pacific nations, ASEAN specifically for Southeast Asia, and the UN Crime Commission. We are not starting at point zero. Man has walked this path before us and we can take advantage of some of the institutions, the infrastructure, and the architecture that has already been built for us.
For those of us who are from the United States of America, and specifically the United States Government, we have a new weapon as of February of this year, when the President’s new National Strategy for Combatting Wildlife Trafficking came online. This Strategy is easily available online to anyone who may choose to access it.
The President’s National Strategy offers three areas of focus: first, strengthening enforcement of laws and regulations. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what I do for a living. I support law enforcement around the world.
Second, reducing demand for illegally trafficked wildlife. That, to a very considerable extent, is what the conservation community does for a living. However, I do predict that demand will drop rather substantially if, for instance, we tell most individuals that they could be sent to prison for 20 years for buying a rhino horn. I predict that the demand for rhino horn just might diminish a little bit as a result of law enforcement efforts.
The third area laid out in this strategy is building greater international and domestic cooperation. And, that is what both the conservation and the law enforcement communities do.
Now, despite the fact that I am widely referred to in the State Department as “drugs and thugs,” I am actually the Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, or INL. We have $15 million that we are putting to wildlife trafficking in 2014. And, without going into detail, I am going to divide it into two basic categories. One, we are processing roughly $5 million through some of these international organizations that I just laid out for you. They have already developed programs that are transnational in scope and address the wildlife trafficking issue in an entire region. They need support, they need funds, they need resources. We are trying to provide some of that for them.
The remaining $10 million or so is going into programs with individual countries and governments. This is heavily focused at this time on Africa, and we will have cooperative and close programs with the Governments of Kenya and the Republic of South Africa. Some of the $10 million will be available for other regional programs and cooperation in southern Africa.
We have organized our work on this issue around four basic categories. The first is what we call “legislative framework.” The principle behind this is amazingly simple: it is very difficult to prosecute someone for wildlife trafficking if there is no law on the books that makes it a criminal offense. Judges get annoyed when prosecutors bring cases before them and the prosecutors cannot explain what law has been violated by the defendant. And, believe it or not, in many countries and regions around the world, there are not existing statutes on the books criminalizing this sort of activity or, in some cases; it is criminalized to such a minimal extent that it becomes the equivalent of a traffic offense or a failure to pay parking tickets. Creating the legislative framework must be the first plank in a successful strategy of combatting wildlife trafficking.
Our second organizational concept is support for law enforcement. In the United States of America, this is largely a ranger’s function, though not exclusively. The more we get into prosecutions, the more state and local law enforcement will become engaged, but trying to stop poachers and traffickers at the point of infraction is an expanded ranger function. By expanded, I mean that what these poor guys have to deal with are groups of people armed to the level of an infantry platoon – that degree of firepower. The prospect of coming in and enforcing the law with a nightstick and possibly a 9mm pistol puts local law enforcement in an extraordinarily difficult position. They need training, they need equipment, and in some instances, they need weaponry. That must be part of our challenge.
Our third organizational category includes prosecutors and courts. As you can well imagine, if we have identified them, arrested them, and brought them to court, but a prosecutor has no experience whatsoever on how to prosecute this particular type of crime, then we are not likely to have success. There is nothing that will kill a strategy and a policy more quickly than two or three losing cases that send the message out to everyone in the trafficking industry that “they can’t touch us even if they get us to court.”
Our fourth organizational category is cross-border cooperation. We do it through something we call wildlife enforcement networks – WENS. The principle behind this initiative is extremely simple. It is that governments that are neighbors or at least in the same region as each other stand to benefit from sharing intelligence and information and notifying each other about trafficking groups that seem to be moving across frontiers and borders. At times, regional partners might even plan and cooperate on joint operations and efforts. I can assure you that sophisticated wildlife trafficking organizations know exactly where the borders are located and know precisely how to take advantage of the border if country or government X is enforcing and government Y is not enforcing.
That is the plan. Has there been an impact? I would suggest that there has been. Let me offer three examples from the INL anti-wildlife trafficking initiative. First, recently, 28 governments and their law enforcement communities cooperated for one month in an exercise called COBRA II. This involved law enforcement communities and organizations from Asia, Africa, and North America. What did they accomplish in one month? More than 400 arrests and 350 seizures of illegally trafficked wildlife - and they learned in that month how to do it. They learned lessons from other law enforcement organizations as to what worked and what did not work. They also learned how to communicate with one another and learned new tactics, techniques, and technologies.
Second, in April 2013, the United Nations Crime Commission met and - with the eventual sponsorship of 20 different governments - passed a resolution that stated that wildlife trafficking is a “serious crime” in the United Nations system. Now, ladies and gentlemen, in UN speak, that is about as tough as you can get. They have given the tool and the weapon to any government that is prepared to take on the challenge, by saying the United Nations system and the world’s global community says that this act is a serious crime.
Third and finally, in November of last year, the government for which I work issued its first ever reward offer of the Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program. Under the authority created by the President of the United States and supporting our Transnational Organized Crime Strategy, this reward program was designed to fill the gap between counterterrorism on one side and counternarcotics on the other side by creating the authority to offer rewards for the most serious participants in transnational organized crime. Who was the very first named suspected criminal under this authority? Ladies and gentleman, it was the organization known as the Xaysavang Network, under the leadership, we believe, of Mr. Keosavang, a citizen of Laos. We believe this organization is perhaps one of the world’s largest wildlife trafficking organizations. They traffic product from Asia and Africa in search of markets around the world.
We have offered $1 million to anyone who assists in taking down this trafficking network. It is symbolic, I acknowledge, but it is important symbolism to say that at the first opportunity we had to identify a transnational criminal organization and to put real money behind its dismantlement, we selected a wildlife trafficking organization. May I say to anyone in the Xaysavang network who may be listening today or in the future that this reward offer still stands. There is no rock beneath which you can hide; no tree behind which you may conceal yourself that will make that $1 million go away.
Ladies and gentlemen, may I mention one other program? I believe there are some academics in this room and I would like to draw you in to this conversation as well. There is a program that the State Department has been managing for several years. It’s kind of a cool program that we call the Diplomacy Lab. It works on the following concept. Neither the Department of State nor any other foreign ministry in the world has so many resources, so many people, so much money that it can do all of the research and analysis that it requires with its own employees. We want to draw in the academic world to this effort. We want to allow them the opportunity, whether they are undergraduate or graduate students or tenured professors, to do research and work that will have a direct, real-world impact on what we are doing. We identify areas and invite research and analysis in those areas. We had excellent success with this in areas related to my line of work, including corrections, prison management, community policing, and tribal courts. There have been a half-dozen of these sorts of research efforts which we absorb in the INL bureau, integrate into our programs and then attempt to apply in genuine programs in many countries around the world. May I suggest to you, academics, to look to the year 2014 for the opportunity to engage in several of these projects and programs that are related to illicit wildlife trafficking?
The problem of wildlife trafficking is not going to be solved today or even this year. It has taken us centuries and perhaps even millennia to get into this problem. It is going to take us some years as a human race to solve it. Yet we will solve the problem, step by step. We will do it together as two communities: a community that is dedicated to conservation and preservation and a community that is dedicated to the enforcement of our nations’ and our planet’s laws. We will do it because we can. We will do it because we must.
Leonard mentioned in his remarks the sound of a lioness mourning the loss of its cub. I come from the west Texas panhandle. I can assure you that I have never heard that sound. I hope I never do. But there is one sound of a mother mourning that, I suggest to you, I would not mind hearing at all. That would be the sound of a homo sapien mourning the departure of her poacher son as he begins several years of incarceration following his conviction and sentencing for wildlife trafficking. That is a vision that I would not mind associating myself with, because the more of that sort of mourning we hear, the less mourning we will hear from lionesses who have lost their cubs. Someday, if we do our jobs right and well, perhaps we’ll hear neither of those two sorts of mourning. Neither the lioness nor the elephant nor the rhino mother, mourning the loss of its young, nor the homo sapien mother mourning the departure of her poacher son. When that day comes, we will have succeeded.
I thank you very much; I look forward to further discussion.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
DOJ RELEASES ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES DIVISION 2013 ACCOMPLISHMENTS
FROM: U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Environment and Natural Resources Division Releases FY 2013 Accomplishments Report
In the last fiscal year, the Justice Department continued carrying out its commitment to environmental justice to ensure the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental and natural resources laws and policies. The division’s work advancing the goals of environmental justice is illustrated in a separate chapter of the report.
“The Environment Division’s work to protect our air, land and water from pollution is as critical to our nation’s health, security, and sustainability as it has ever been,” said Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole. “As we face significant challenges from climate change, in developing alternative and sustainable sources of energy and addressing pollution to protect public health and the environment, we are grateful to the division and its attorneys for the work they do each day on behalf of the American people and future generations of Americans.”
“As this report shows, every day, the division works with client agencies, U.S. Attorneys’ offices, and state, local and tribal governments to enforce federal environmental, natural resources, and wildlife laws,” said Robert G. Dreher, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division. “It also defends federal agency actions and rules when they are challenged in the courts, keeping the nation’s air, water, and land free of pollution, promoting military preparedness and national security, and supporting responsible stewardship of America’s forests, wildlife and other natural resources. The division also handles a broad array of important matters affecting Indian tribes and their members. Across all this work, we strive to ensure that all Americans enjoy clean air, water and land, implementing the department’s deep commitment to environmental justice.”
In FY 2013, the division secured over $1.78 billion in civil and stipulated penalties, cost recoveries, natural resource damages and other civil monetary relief, including almost $637 million recovered for the Superfund. The division obtained almost $6.5 billion in corrective measures, through court orders and settlements, to protect the nation’s air, water and other natural resources. It concluded 53 criminal cases against 87 defendants, obtaining nearly 65 years in confinement and over $79 million in criminal fines, restitution, community service funds and special assessments. Finally, the handling of defensive and condemnation cases closed in fiscal year 2013 saved the United States an estimated $6.8 billion.
Among other highlights included in the FY 2013 Accomplishments report:
Accountability for the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
The division’s top civil enforcement priority remains the ongoing civil litigation and trial stemming from the April 20, 2010 explosion and fire that destroyed the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico and triggered a massive oil spill. In December 2010, the United States brought a civil suit against BP, Anadarko, MOEX, and Transocean for civil penalties under the Clean Water Act and a declaration of liability under the Oil Pollution Act, as part of multidistrict litigation in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
Thus far, the department has secured over $1 billion in civil penalties through Deepwater Horizon settlements (with MOEX and Transocean), as well as far-reaching injunctive relief that should make Transocean’s deepwater drilling safer in the Gulf of Mexico.
The department tried the first phase of the U.S. case against the remaining defendants (addressing the cause of the disaster and liability) for nine weeks from February through April 2013, as part of a mass trial in which thousands of private plaintiffs also tried parts of their cases relating to liability and fault. The second phase of the U.S. case (principally addressing how much oil was discharged into the Gulf) took place over three weeks in September and October 2013. Both phases have been submitted to the district court for decision. The district court in New Orleans has scheduled the third phase of trial in this matter, addressing assessment of civil penalties, to begin in January 2015.
Addressing Climate Change
Over the past year, the division made important contributions to combating the effects of climate change. In January 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) regulations governing motor vehicle emissions of greenhouse gases took effect, triggering not only mobile source regulation, but also regulation of the largest stationary sources in accordance with EPA’s greenhouse gas tailoring rule. As of September 2012, the D.C. Circuit in Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. EPA upheld the agency’s greenhouse gas-related regulatory actions in their entirety. Challengers filed nine separate petitions for writs of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court. In July 2013, the Department’s Office of the Solicitor General, working closely with Division and client agency attorneys, filed an opposition to the petitions for certiorari. On Oct. 15, 2013, the Supreme Court granted certiorari on six of the petitions, which were consolidated and limited to a single issue: “Whether EPA permissibly determined that its regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles triggered permitting requirements under the Clean Air Act for stationary sources that emit greenhouse gases.” The court denied the remaining three petitions, and rejected consideration of numerous additional issues raised by the petitions that were partially granted. In February 2014, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in the case.
In March 2013, the D.C. Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision in In re Polar Bear Endangered Species Act Listing, thereby upholding the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2008 listing of the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act as a threatened species throughout its range. The listing decision was based primarily on the polar bears’ dependence on arctic sea ice for their survival, existing and projected reductions in the extent and quality of sea ice habitat due to global climate change, and the inadequacy of existing regulatory measures to preserve the species.
In a settlement reached with the United States in September 2013, Safeway, the nation’s second largest grocery store chain, agreed to pay a $600,000 civil penalty and to implement a corporate-wide plan to significantly reduce its emissions of ozone-depleting substances from refrigeration equipment at over 650 of its stores nationwide, at an estimated cost of $4.1 million. The settlement resolves allegations that Safeway violated the Clean Air Act by failing to promptly repair leaks of HCFC-22, a hydrochlorofluorocarbon that has a global warming potential that is 1,800 times more potent than carbon dioxide. This first-of-its-kind settlement should also serve as a model for comprehensive solutions across a company.
Combating Wildlife Trafficking
The department has long been a leader in the fight against wildlife trafficking. Over the last year, the department engaged fully in the administration’s effort to combat wildlife trafficking through its role as one of the three agency co-chairs of the Presidential Task Force on Wildlife Trafficking, established by President Obama’s July 2013 Executive Order—Combating Wildlife Trafficking. In the past decade, wildlife trafficking has escalated into an international crisis, making it both a critical conservation concern and a threat to global security. Beyond decimating the world’s iconic species, this illegal trade threatens international security. Transnational criminal organizations, including some terrorist networks, armed insurgent groups and narcotics trafficking organizations, are increasingly drawn to wildlife trafficking due to the exorbitant proceeds from this illicit trade.
The task force emphasizes the need for a “whole of government” approach to combating this problem and identifies three key priority areas: (1) strengthening domestic and global enforcement; (2) reducing demand for illegally traded wildlife at home and abroad; and (3) strengthening partnerships with foreign governments, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, local communities, private industry, and others to combat illegal wildlife poaching and trade.
The division works with U.S. Attorneys’ offices around the country and federal agency partners (such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) to combat wildlife trafficking under the Endangered Species Act and the Lacey Act, as well as statutes prohibiting smuggling, criminal conspiracy and related crimes. In fiscal year 2013, a prominent example of the division’s robust prosecution of illegal wildlife trafficking was “Operation Crash,” an ongoing multi-agency effort to detect, deter and prosecute those engaged in the illegal killing of rhinoceros and the illegal trafficking of endangered rhinoceros horns. This initiative has resulted in multiple convictions, significant jail time, penalties and asset forfeiture.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
2 MEN PLEAD GUILTY FOR ROLES IN NARWHAL TUSKS TRAFFICKING SCHEME
FROM: JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Tennessee Men Plead Guilty to Illegally Trafficking Narwhal Tusks
Jay G. Conrad, of Lakeland, Tenn., pleaded guilty today in the District of Maine to conspiring to illegally import and traffic narwhal tusks, conspiring to launder money, and illegally trafficking narwhal tusks, announced Robert G. Dreher, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division . A plea agreement was also unsealed today in which Eddie T. Dunn, of Eads, Tenn., pleaded guilty in the District of Alaska to conspiring to illegally traffic, and trafficking, narwhal tusks.
According to the plea agreements, beginning in approximately 2003, Dunn and Conrad partnered to buy more than 100 narwhal tusks from a Canadian resident who each knew had illegally imported the tusks from Canada into Maine. After receiving the tusks in Tennessee, Dunn and Conrad marketed and sold the tusks using a combination of internet sales via the “Ebay” auction website and direct sales to known buyers and collectors of ivory. Buyers were located throughout the United States, including in Alaska and Washington. Throughout the conspiracy, Dunn and Conrad made payments to the Canadian supplier for the narwhal tusks by sending the payment to a mailing address in Bangor, Maine, or directly to the supplier in Canada. The payments allowed the Canadian supplier to purchase and re-supply Dunn and Conrad with more narwhal tusks that they could then re-sell. Dunn sold approximately $1.1 million worth of narwhal tusks and Conrad sold between $400,000 and $1 million worth of narwhal tusks as members of the conspiracy.
“In this conspiracy, Dunn and Conrad flouted U.S. law and international agreements that protect marine mammals like the narwhal from commercial exploitation,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Dreher. “If left unchecked, this illegal trade has the potential to irreparably harm the species. The Justice Department will continue to investigate and prosecute wildlife traffickers in order to protect these species for future generations to enjoy.”
“The cooperation between Service and NOAA investigators and between the United States and Canada that led to these prosecutions reflects the type of partnerships needed to protect narwhals and other species worldwide from wildlife trafficking,” said William C. Woody, Assistant Director for Law Enforcement for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“NOAA OLE takes the unlawful importation of protected marine mammals very seriously,” said NOAA-Office of Law Enforcement Special Agent in Charge Logan Gregory. “NOAA OLE will continue to investigate those who unlawfully import marine mammal products and profit from marine protected species such as the narwhal.”
“This investigation uncovered and dismantled a wildlife trafficking network that spanned from New Brunswick to Tennessee and reached as far as Alaska,” said Karen Loeffler, U.S. Attorney for the District of Alaska. “The results reached demonstrate the close cooperation between the United States and Canada and their law enforcement officers whose duty it is to investigate, stop and deter those who illegally target diminishing wildlife resources and do so for commercial gain.”
A narwhal is a medium-sized whale with an extremely long tusk that projects from its upper left jaw. Narwhals are marine mammals protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act and are listed on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). It is illegal to import parts of marine mammals into the United States without the requisite permits/certifications, and without declaring the merchandise at the time of importation to U.S. Customs and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Narwhal tusks are commonly collected for display purposes and can fetch large sums of money.
Dunn is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Ralph R. Beistline in the District of Alaska on March 20, 2014. The maximum penalty Dunn faces for conspiring to illegally traffic, and trafficking, narwhal tusks is five years of incarceration and a fine of $250,000. The maximum penalty Conrad faces for conspiring to illegally import and illegally traffic narwhal tusks, conspiring to commit money laundering crimes and illegally trafficking narwhal tusks is twenty years of incarceration and a fine of $250,000. The trial of Co-defendant Andrew J. Zarauskas is set to begin in Bangor, Maine, on February 4, 2014. Co-defendant Gregory R. Logan is pending extradition from Canada to the District of Maine.
These cases are part of Operation Nanook, a multi-agency effort to detect, deter and prosecute those engaged in the unlawful trafficking of narwhal tusks. The cases were investigated by agents from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - Office of Law Enforcement and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Office of Law Enforcement, with extensive support and collaboration from Environment Canada, Wildlife Enforcement. The cases are being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Todd S. Mikolop of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section of the Environment and Natural Resources Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven E. Skrocki of the District of Alaska.
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Tennessee Men Plead Guilty to Illegally Trafficking Narwhal Tusks
Jay G. Conrad, of Lakeland, Tenn., pleaded guilty today in the District of Maine to conspiring to illegally import and traffic narwhal tusks, conspiring to launder money, and illegally trafficking narwhal tusks, announced Robert G. Dreher, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division . A plea agreement was also unsealed today in which Eddie T. Dunn, of Eads, Tenn., pleaded guilty in the District of Alaska to conspiring to illegally traffic, and trafficking, narwhal tusks.
According to the plea agreements, beginning in approximately 2003, Dunn and Conrad partnered to buy more than 100 narwhal tusks from a Canadian resident who each knew had illegally imported the tusks from Canada into Maine. After receiving the tusks in Tennessee, Dunn and Conrad marketed and sold the tusks using a combination of internet sales via the “Ebay” auction website and direct sales to known buyers and collectors of ivory. Buyers were located throughout the United States, including in Alaska and Washington. Throughout the conspiracy, Dunn and Conrad made payments to the Canadian supplier for the narwhal tusks by sending the payment to a mailing address in Bangor, Maine, or directly to the supplier in Canada. The payments allowed the Canadian supplier to purchase and re-supply Dunn and Conrad with more narwhal tusks that they could then re-sell. Dunn sold approximately $1.1 million worth of narwhal tusks and Conrad sold between $400,000 and $1 million worth of narwhal tusks as members of the conspiracy.
“In this conspiracy, Dunn and Conrad flouted U.S. law and international agreements that protect marine mammals like the narwhal from commercial exploitation,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Dreher. “If left unchecked, this illegal trade has the potential to irreparably harm the species. The Justice Department will continue to investigate and prosecute wildlife traffickers in order to protect these species for future generations to enjoy.”
“The cooperation between Service and NOAA investigators and between the United States and Canada that led to these prosecutions reflects the type of partnerships needed to protect narwhals and other species worldwide from wildlife trafficking,” said William C. Woody, Assistant Director for Law Enforcement for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“NOAA OLE takes the unlawful importation of protected marine mammals very seriously,” said NOAA-Office of Law Enforcement Special Agent in Charge Logan Gregory. “NOAA OLE will continue to investigate those who unlawfully import marine mammal products and profit from marine protected species such as the narwhal.”
“This investigation uncovered and dismantled a wildlife trafficking network that spanned from New Brunswick to Tennessee and reached as far as Alaska,” said Karen Loeffler, U.S. Attorney for the District of Alaska. “The results reached demonstrate the close cooperation between the United States and Canada and their law enforcement officers whose duty it is to investigate, stop and deter those who illegally target diminishing wildlife resources and do so for commercial gain.”
A narwhal is a medium-sized whale with an extremely long tusk that projects from its upper left jaw. Narwhals are marine mammals protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act and are listed on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). It is illegal to import parts of marine mammals into the United States without the requisite permits/certifications, and without declaring the merchandise at the time of importation to U.S. Customs and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Narwhal tusks are commonly collected for display purposes and can fetch large sums of money.
Dunn is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Ralph R. Beistline in the District of Alaska on March 20, 2014. The maximum penalty Dunn faces for conspiring to illegally traffic, and trafficking, narwhal tusks is five years of incarceration and a fine of $250,000. The maximum penalty Conrad faces for conspiring to illegally import and illegally traffic narwhal tusks, conspiring to commit money laundering crimes and illegally trafficking narwhal tusks is twenty years of incarceration and a fine of $250,000. The trial of Co-defendant Andrew J. Zarauskas is set to begin in Bangor, Maine, on February 4, 2014. Co-defendant Gregory R. Logan is pending extradition from Canada to the District of Maine.
These cases are part of Operation Nanook, a multi-agency effort to detect, deter and prosecute those engaged in the unlawful trafficking of narwhal tusks. The cases were investigated by agents from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - Office of Law Enforcement and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Office of Law Enforcement, with extensive support and collaboration from Environment Canada, Wildlife Enforcement. The cases are being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Todd S. Mikolop of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section of the Environment and Natural Resources Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven E. Skrocki of the District of Alaska.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
PRESIDENT OBAMA SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER TO HELP COMBAT WILDLIFE TRAFFICKING
FROM: THE WHITE HOUSE
FACT SHEET: U.S. Efforts to Combat Wildlife Trafficking
July 01, 2013
Wildlife trafficking is a multi-billion dollar illicit business that is decimating Africa’s iconic animal populations. Many species -- most notably elephants and rhinoceroses -- now face the risk of significant decline or even extinction. Like other forms of illicit trade, wildlife trafficking undermines security across nations. Well-armed, well-equipped, and well-organized networks of poachers, criminals, and corrupt officials exploit porous borders and weak institutions to profit from trading in illegally taken wildlife.
The United States is committed to combating wildlife trafficking, related corruption, and money laundering. With our international partners, we are working to reduce demand, strengthen enforcement, and building capacity to address these challenges bilaterally, regionally, and multilaterally.
A New Executive Order to Better Coordinate the U.S. Response
Today the President will sign an Executive Order (E.O.) to enhance coordination of U.S. Government efforts to combat wildlife trafficking and assist foreign governments in building the capacity needed to combat wildlife trafficking and related organized crime.
The E.O. establishes a Presidential Task Force on Wildlife Trafficking charged with developing a National Strategy for Combating Wildlife Trafficking. It also establishes an Advisory Council on Wildlife Trafficking comprised of eight individuals with relevant expertise from outside the Government to make recommendations to the Task Force.
New Assistance to Support Regional Partners
As the President will announce today in Tanzania, the U.S. Department of State will provide an additional $10 million in regional and bilateral training and technical assistance in Africa to combat wildlife trafficking. This will include approximately $3 million in bilateral assistance to South Africa, $3 million in bilateral assistance to Kenya, and $4 million in regional assistance throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
This training and technical assistance aims to:
1) Strengthen policies and legislative frameworks;
2) Enhance investigative and law enforcement functions;
3) Support regional cooperation among enforcement agencies; and,
4) Develop capacities to prosecute and adjudicate crimes related to wildlife trafficking.
In addition, USAID will launch a wildlife technology challenge, which will promote the use of innovative technologies like mobile phone applications and wildlife DNA analysis techniques to assist in combating wildlife trafficking.
The State Department, USAID, and the Department of Interior U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) will also assign a USFWS official to our Embassy in Dar es Salaam to support the Government of Tanzania's efforts to develop an overarching wildlife security strategy.
New U.S. Enforcement and Regulatory Efforts to Combat Wildlife Trafficking
The Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program, which was signed into law on January 2013, enables the Secretary of State to offer rewards up for information leading to the arrest, conviction, or identification of significant members of transnational criminal organizations who operate primarily outside the United States.
The law also allows for rewards for information that dismantles such organizations or leads to the disruption of their financial mechanisms. The United States intends to leverage this new authority, as appropriate, to combat the most significant perpetrators of wildlife trafficking.
In addition, the Department of Interior will enhance regulations that directly affect illegal wildlife trafficking of elephants and rhinoceroses. These regulations pertain to U.S. federal laws including the Endangered Species Act, the African Elephant Conservation Act, and the Rhinoceros and Tiger Conservation Act.
Successes to Date and Building on On-going Activities
These new commitments build on on-going efforts within the U.S. Government, and with foreign governments, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector to reduce demand and strengthen enforcement and institutional capabilities. Representative examples include:
Capacity Building from Asia to Africa
USAID supports over $12 million per year in counter-wildlife trafficking activities, including support for anti-poaching activities in Africa and Asia, capacity building, and demand reduction campaigns in Asia.
The State Department and Department of the Interior / USFWS support the International Law Enforcement Academy in Gaborone, Botswana, which has trained 350 law enforcement officers in wildlife crime investigations since 2002.
To specifically address transcontinental trafficking, USAID is funding a three-year program with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC to improve understanding of current trends in wildlife trafficking and identify priority wildlife trafficking issues on behalf of the broader law enforcement and security communities.
The State Department is providing more than $2 million to support investigation, interdiction, and prosecution efforts in East Asia and the Pacific, including park ranger training and special investigative training for wildlife managers at the U.S. International Law Enforcement Academy in Bangkok.
The USFWS is providing an additional $2 million annually to support the Wildlife Without Borders capacity building program, which aids government agencies and non-governmental partners in enhancing wildlife law enforcement training, promoting best practices for community stewardship of wildlife resources, and addressing other critical conservation needs.
The Department of Justice and the USFWS jointly investigate and prosecute wildlife trafficking cases, working alongside international partners, to provide training and state-of-the-art forensic support for investigating and prosecuting wildlife crimes.
Conservation and Demand Reduction
The USFWS provides $10 million annually to enhance and support wildlife conservation throughout Africa and Asia. The funds support essential wildlife protection activities in 25 African countries, including improving capacity to carry out investigations and prosecutions of wildlife crime; developing effective park law enforcement and management to deter illegal hunting; improving management of key wildlife species and protected areas; and developing community management schemes.
USAID invests $200 million a year in biodiversity conservation, $70 million of which is in Africa. These investments provide support for community-based approaches to natural resources management in Africa, including community-scouting and ranger programs.
In consumer nations in Asia, USFWS supports government partners in awareness and demand reduction campaigns, which include public outreach to discourage consumption, noting the cost to wildlife of purchased exotic items, and highlighting criminal consequences of consuming illegally trafficked or purchased wildlife products.
Building a Coalition of Partnerships
The United States is working with the International Consortium to Combat Wildlife Crime and other interested partners to support the creation of a global network of regional and national Wildlife Enforcement Networks to improve communication and strengthen response actions across enforcement agencies globally. USAID has invested $17 million since 2005 to specifically support improving these regional networks of wildlife enforcement officials, as well as increasing public awareness, reducing demand for wildlife products, and building political will. The United States is also supporting the creation of new networks in central Africa and the Horn of Africa, among others in Asia and South America.
Additionally, the United States encourages participation by governments, civil society, and the private sector in existing partnerships that combat wildlife crime, such as the Coalition Against Wildlife Trafficking (CAWT).
Raising the Issue in International Fora
The United States successfully co-sponsored a resolution at the 2013 UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice encouraging UN Member States to classify wildlife trafficking as a "serious" crime as defined in the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. This will facilitate further international cooperation among states that have ratified or acceded to the treaty, and will lead to increased penalties for traffickers.
Through U.S. advocacy, the 2012 APEC Leaders Declaration included commitments to address both the supply and demand for endangered and protected wildlife, including through capacity building and increased enforcement.
FACT SHEET: U.S. Efforts to Combat Wildlife Trafficking
July 01, 2013
Wildlife trafficking is a multi-billion dollar illicit business that is decimating Africa’s iconic animal populations. Many species -- most notably elephants and rhinoceroses -- now face the risk of significant decline or even extinction. Like other forms of illicit trade, wildlife trafficking undermines security across nations. Well-armed, well-equipped, and well-organized networks of poachers, criminals, and corrupt officials exploit porous borders and weak institutions to profit from trading in illegally taken wildlife.
The United States is committed to combating wildlife trafficking, related corruption, and money laundering. With our international partners, we are working to reduce demand, strengthen enforcement, and building capacity to address these challenges bilaterally, regionally, and multilaterally.
A New Executive Order to Better Coordinate the U.S. Response
Today the President will sign an Executive Order (E.O.) to enhance coordination of U.S. Government efforts to combat wildlife trafficking and assist foreign governments in building the capacity needed to combat wildlife trafficking and related organized crime.
The E.O. establishes a Presidential Task Force on Wildlife Trafficking charged with developing a National Strategy for Combating Wildlife Trafficking. It also establishes an Advisory Council on Wildlife Trafficking comprised of eight individuals with relevant expertise from outside the Government to make recommendations to the Task Force.
New Assistance to Support Regional Partners
As the President will announce today in Tanzania, the U.S. Department of State will provide an additional $10 million in regional and bilateral training and technical assistance in Africa to combat wildlife trafficking. This will include approximately $3 million in bilateral assistance to South Africa, $3 million in bilateral assistance to Kenya, and $4 million in regional assistance throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
This training and technical assistance aims to:
1) Strengthen policies and legislative frameworks;
2) Enhance investigative and law enforcement functions;
3) Support regional cooperation among enforcement agencies; and,
4) Develop capacities to prosecute and adjudicate crimes related to wildlife trafficking.
In addition, USAID will launch a wildlife technology challenge, which will promote the use of innovative technologies like mobile phone applications and wildlife DNA analysis techniques to assist in combating wildlife trafficking.
The State Department, USAID, and the Department of Interior U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) will also assign a USFWS official to our Embassy in Dar es Salaam to support the Government of Tanzania's efforts to develop an overarching wildlife security strategy.
New U.S. Enforcement and Regulatory Efforts to Combat Wildlife Trafficking
The Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program, which was signed into law on January 2013, enables the Secretary of State to offer rewards up for information leading to the arrest, conviction, or identification of significant members of transnational criminal organizations who operate primarily outside the United States.
The law also allows for rewards for information that dismantles such organizations or leads to the disruption of their financial mechanisms. The United States intends to leverage this new authority, as appropriate, to combat the most significant perpetrators of wildlife trafficking.
In addition, the Department of Interior will enhance regulations that directly affect illegal wildlife trafficking of elephants and rhinoceroses. These regulations pertain to U.S. federal laws including the Endangered Species Act, the African Elephant Conservation Act, and the Rhinoceros and Tiger Conservation Act.
Successes to Date and Building on On-going Activities
These new commitments build on on-going efforts within the U.S. Government, and with foreign governments, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector to reduce demand and strengthen enforcement and institutional capabilities. Representative examples include:
Capacity Building from Asia to Africa
The State Department and Department of the Interior / USFWS support the International Law Enforcement Academy in Gaborone, Botswana, which has trained 350 law enforcement officers in wildlife crime investigations since 2002.
To specifically address transcontinental trafficking, USAID is funding a three-year program with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC to improve understanding of current trends in wildlife trafficking and identify priority wildlife trafficking issues on behalf of the broader law enforcement and security communities.
The State Department is providing more than $2 million to support investigation, interdiction, and prosecution efforts in East Asia and the Pacific, including park ranger training and special investigative training for wildlife managers at the U.S. International Law Enforcement Academy in Bangkok.
The USFWS is providing an additional $2 million annually to support the Wildlife Without Borders capacity building program, which aids government agencies and non-governmental partners in enhancing wildlife law enforcement training, promoting best practices for community stewardship of wildlife resources, and addressing other critical conservation needs.
The Department of Justice and the USFWS jointly investigate and prosecute wildlife trafficking cases, working alongside international partners, to provide training and state-of-the-art forensic support for investigating and prosecuting wildlife crimes.
Conservation and Demand Reduction
USAID invests $200 million a year in biodiversity conservation, $70 million of which is in Africa. These investments provide support for community-based approaches to natural resources management in Africa, including community-scouting and ranger programs.
In consumer nations in Asia, USFWS supports government partners in awareness and demand reduction campaigns, which include public outreach to discourage consumption, noting the cost to wildlife of purchased exotic items, and highlighting criminal consequences of consuming illegally trafficked or purchased wildlife products.
Building a Coalition of Partnerships
Additionally, the United States encourages participation by governments, civil society, and the private sector in existing partnerships that combat wildlife crime, such as the Coalition Against Wildlife Trafficking (CAWT).
Raising the Issue in International Fora
Through U.S. advocacy, the 2012 APEC Leaders Declaration included commitments to address both the supply and demand for endangered and protected wildlife, including through capacity building and increased enforcement.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE CLINTON'S REMARKS AT THE PARTNERSHIP MEETING ON WILDLIFE TRAFFICKING
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| Photo Credit: CIA World Factbook. |
FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Remarks at the Partnership Meeting on Wildlife Trafficking
Remarks
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Benjamin Franklin Room
Washington, DC
November 8, 2012
Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Well, it’s a great delight to see all of you here. And as I look out on this audience, I see many familiar faces from the diplomatic community. And I especially thank each and every one of you for being here on this important issue.
Congressman Moran, thank you for joining us today. I’d also like to welcome Deputy Administrator Steinberg from USAID, Naoko Ishii of the Global Environmental Facility. Thanks to Under Secretary Bob Hormats for his commitment to this issue, along with Under Secretary Maria Otero and Under Secretary Tara Sonenshine and Assistant Secretary Kerri-Ann Jones, and many others here in the State Department, and particularly all of you from the conservation and wildlife community and the private sector who have been involved in this issue for many years and have done extraordinary work. Unfortunately, we now find ourselves with all of that positive effort that started 30, 40 years ago being affected by changes that we have to address at every level of the international community.
Now, some of you might be wondering why a Secretary of State is keynoting an event about wildlife trafficking and conservation, or why we are hosting this event at the State Department in the first place. Well, I think it’s because, as Bob Hormats has just pointed out, and as the public service announcements reinforce, over the past few years wildlife trafficking has become more organized, more lucrative, more widespread, and more dangerous than ever before.
As the middle class grows, which we all welcome and support, in many nations items like ivory or rhinoceros horn become symbols of wealth and social status. And so the demand for these goods rises. By some estimates, the black market in wildlife is rivaled in size only by trade in illegal arms and drugs. Today, ivory sells for nearly $1,000 per pound. Rhino horns are literally worth their weight in gold, $30,000 per pound.
What’s more, we are increasingly seeing wildlife trafficking has serious implications for the security and prosperity of people around the world. Local populations that depend on wildlife, either for tourism or sustenance, are finding it harder and harder to maintain their livelihoods. Diseases are spreading to new corners of the globe through wildlife that is not properly inspected at border crossings. Park rangers are being killed. And we have good reason to believe that rebel militias are players in a worldwide ivory market worth millions and millions of dollars a year.
So yes, I think many of us are here because protecting wildlife is a matter of protecting our planet’s natural beauty. We see it’s a stewardship responsibility for us and this generation and future generations to come. But it is also a national security issue, a public health issue, and an economic security issue that is critical to each and every country represented here.
We all, unfortunately, contribute to the continued demand for illegal animal goods. Wildlife might be targeted and killed across Asia and Africa, but their furs, tusks, bones, and horns are sold all over the world. Smuggled goods from poached animals find their way to Europe, Australia, China, and the United States. I regret to say the United States is the second-largest destination market for illegally trafficked wildlife in the world. And that is something we are going to address.
Now, several conservation groups are here with us today, and we greatly appreciate their invaluable work. But the truth is they cannot solve this problem alone. None of us can. This is a global challenge that spans continents and crosses oceans, and we need to address it with partnerships that are as robust and far-reaching as the criminal networks we seek to dismantle.
Therefore, we need governments, civil society, businesses, scientists, and activists to come together to educate people about the harms of wildlife trafficking. We need law enforcement personnel to prevent poachers from preying on wildlife. We need trade experts to track the movement of goods and help enforce existing trade laws. We need finance experts to study and help undermine the black markets that deal in wildlife. And most importantly, perhaps, we need to reach individuals, to convince them to make the right choices about the goods they purchase.
Now, there’s no quick fix, but by working closely, internationally, with all of these partners, we can take important steps to protect wildlife in their environments and begin to dry up the demand for trafficked goods. So with these goals in mind, the State Department is pursuing a four-part strategy.
First, on the diplomatic front, we are working with leaders from around the world to develop a global consensus on wildlife protection. I spoke with President Putin, Ambassador, when we were together at the APEC summit in Vladivostok. He has been a staunch, vocal, public supporter of Russian wildlife. And I think it’s fair to say his personal efforts over the last years have made the lives of tigers in Russia much safer. There’s still poaching, but at least there is a commitment from the highest level of the Russian Government to protect the wildlife of Russia. In fact, when I was in Vladivostok, there were posters everywhere with tigers on the pictures on the lampposts and walls and everywhere we looked, reminding people that this was an important issue to Russia and the Russian Government. And I worked – I had the great privilege of working with President Putin and the other leaders there to make sure that the leaders’ statement that was issued included, for the first time ever, strong language on wildlife trafficking.
Now, Undersecretaries Bob Hormats and Maria Otero have met with African and Asian leaders to discuss the immediate actions needed to thwart poachers. Next week, President Obama and I will personally bring this message to our partners in ASEAN and the East Asia Summit when we meet in Phnom Penh.
We are also pressing forward with efforts to protect marine life. And last week, we joined forces with New Zealand to propose the world’s largest marine protected area, the Ross Sea region of Antarctica. And we hope to gain support from the international community as this important proposal moves forward.
We’re strengthening our ability to engage diplomatically on these and other scientific issues. Building scientific partnerships is an important tool in addressing such global challenges. That’s why I’m pleased to announce our three new science envoys, Dr. Bernard Amadei of the University of Colorado, the founder of Engineers Without Borders; Dr. Susan Hockfield, the former president and currently faculty member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and renowned evolutionary biologist Dr. Barbara Schaal of Washington University in St. Louis. Are these three scientists with us today? Are they? Okay. But I think it’s working to create a scientific consensus and very preeminent scientists from across the world speaking out that is one of the important steps that we are urging partners to join with us in doing.
Secondly, we are reaching beyond governments to enlist the support of people. As part of this effort, Under Secretary Tara Sonenshine, our Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy, is spearheading a global outreach campaign which we will launch December 4th on Wildlife Conservation Day. Our embassies will use every tool at their disposal to raise awareness about this issue, from honoring local activists, to spreading the word on Facebook and Twitter. We want to make buying goods, products from trafficked wildlife, endangered species unacceptable, socially unacceptable. We want friends to tell friends they don’t want friends who ingest, display, or otherwise use products that come from endangered species anywhere in the world.
Third, we’re launching new initiatives to strengthen and expand enforcement areas. USAID has already provided more than $24 million over the past five years on a range of programs that combat wildlife crimes. Last year, they launched the ARREST program, which is establishing regional centers of expertise and expanding training programs for law enforcement. We really want to work with all of you, and we want both from countries that are victimized by trafficking to countries where consumers are the end-buyers of such products.
Finally, this is a global issue, and it calls, therefore, for a concerted global response. So I hope every government and organization here today will join the Coalition Against Wildlife Trafficking. That is the global partnership for sharing information on poachers and illicit traders. We’ll also be convening meetings with traditional stakeholders like NGOs and governments and with less traditional stakeholders like air and cruise line companies to discuss new potential partnerships.
Some of the most successful initiatives we’ve seen so far are the regional wildlife enforcement networks. These networks are critical to strengthening protection efforts and enhancing cooperation among key countries. To build on these efforts, today I’m calling for the creation of a global system of regional wildlife enforcement networks to take advantage of those networks that already are operating and the lessons we have learned from them. The sooner we get this off the ground, the better, and to that end, the State Department is pledging $100,000 to help get this new global system up and running.
I want to mention one last step we’re taking. Trafficking relies on porous borders, corrupt officials, and strong networks of organized crime, all of which undermine our mutual security. I’m asking the intelligence community to produce an assessment of the impact of large-scale wildlife trafficking on our security interests so we can fully understand what we’re up against. When I was in Africa last summer, I was quite alarmed by the level of anxiety I heard from leaders. It is one thing to be worried about the traditional poachers who come in and kill and take a few animals, a few tusks, a few horns, or other animal parts. It’s something else when you’ve got helicopters, night vision goggles, automatic weapons, which pose a threat to human life as well as wildlife. Local communities are becoming terrified. Local leaders are telling their national leaders that they can lose control of large swaths of territory to these criminal gangs. Where criminal gangs can come and go at their total discretion, we know that begins to provide safe havens for other sorts of threats to people and governments.
So I think we have to look at this in a comprehensive, holistic way. And there’s something for everybody. If you love animals, if you want to see a more secure world, if you want our economy not to be corrupted globally by this kind of illicit behavior, there is so much we can do together. After all, the world’s wildlife, both on land and in our waters, is such a precious resource, but it is also a limited one. It cannot be manufactured. And once it’s gone, it cannot be replenished. And those who profit from it illegally are not just undermining our borders and our economies. They are truly stealing from the next generation. So we have to work together to stop them and ensure a sustainable future for our wildlife, the people who live with them, and the people who appreciate them everywhere.
So let me thank you all for being here. I really appreciate the turnout, and it means a great deal and the fact that so many ambassadors are here representing their countries – and I particularly want to thank our colleagues, the Ambassador of Kenya, the Ambassador from Indonesia, for taking a leading role in this effort. We want to hear your ideas. These are our ideas, but we really are soliciting your ideas – what works, what can we do better, how can we make a difference. Let’s put the poachers out of business and build a more secure and prosperous world for all of us, and particularly for children generations to come.
Thank you, all. (Applause.)
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