Criminal Cartels Behind Global Trade in Illegal Timber

Organized crime may be behind 15 to 30% of global timber trade.

A U.N. report finds organized crime responsible for half to 90% of illegal logging in the Amazon basin, Africa and Southeast Asia.

Japan, the United States and the European Union remain targets of illegal wood trafficking but the lion's share is destined for China.

The much heralded decline of illegal logging in the mid-
2000s in some tropical regions was widely attributed to
a short-term law enforcement effort. However, long-term
trends in illegal logging and trade have shown that this was
temporary, and illegal logging continues. More importantly,
an apparent decline in illegal logging is due to more advanced
laundering operations masking criminal activities, and not
necessarily due to an overall decline in illegal logging. In
many cases a tripling in the volumes of timber “originating”
from plantations in the five years following the law enforcement
crack-down on illegal logging has come partly from
cover operations by criminals to legalize and launder illegal
logging operations. Other cases of increased illegal logging
involve road construction and the cutting of wide corridors,
which facilitates land clearing by impoverished settlers, who
are later driven away by ranchers and soy producers, such as
has occurred in the Amazon.