Organized crime and animals

In this session, Daan van Uhm will deliver a presentation on the topic of Chinese organized crime groups involved in illegal wildlife trade in the borderlands of the Golden Triangle, discussing the representation of these groups by looking at the diversification of these crime groups into wildlife crimes, and the outsourcing of activities to local opportunistic crime groups in neighboring Laos and Myanmar. After this intervention, Andrea Stefanus will present the findings of his research on regulatory and enforcement challenges of transnational organised IUU fishing crimes, focusing on the criminalisation of IUU fishing committed by organized crime groups, as international fisheries instruments do not provide for regulatory and enforcement solution. The session will conclude with a presentation by Aitor Ibáñez Alonso and Israel Alvarado Martínez, which will examine how and why Mexican organized crime groups, in particular drug cartels, have shifted their operations from drug trafficking to trafficking in specific parts of the illegal trade in totoaba maw as a diversification process, influenced by the social context in which these groups operate.