June 2023 Wildlife Money Trails - BUILDING FINANCIAL INVESTIGATIONS FROM WILDLIFE

See Article 1 of the Directive (EU) 2015/849 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2015 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing, EUR-Lex - 32015L0849 - EN - EUR-Lex (europa.eu) 11. [...] On the other hand, among legitimate ones, it is imperative to the larger the market transactions, and the understand the legal market, including the fewer the number of traders, the higher the average size and scale of transactions that probability that AI algorithms will identify any occur in the ordinary course of business. [...] ESTIMATING THE FINANCIAL VALUE OF THE WILDLIFE/TIMBER TRAFFICKING CASE The information gathered during the preliminary the Court appropriate fines or other economic investigation allows law enforcement to penalties issued that should exceed the illegal estimate the possible total value of the criminal profits calculated.54 proceeds linked to the wildlife or timber trafficking case. [...] DIFFICULTIES IN PROVING THE LINK BETWEEN THE ILLICIT PROFITS AND THE PREDICATE OFFENCE In one of the case studies, the suspect was through multiple transactions in the business involved in the illegal sale of protected species, accounts, it was difficult for investigators however, the proceeds were laundered through to match the transactions to the sale of a his business. [...] After a successful conducted to examine the business records assets forfeiture case with the recovery of of the wildlife trader to link the sale of each EUR150,000, the case was referred to the tax wildlife specimen to a particular financial office to recover additional revenue in unpaid transaction.