Regional coordination, technology, and financial tracking emerge as key tools in the fight against environmental crimes in Latin America.
Brasilia (Brazil), 3 April 2025 – From March 25 to 26, Brasília hosted the regional workshop "LEAP 3.0: Advancing Regional Cooperation on Forestry Crimes", organized by INTERPOL and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) with the support of the Norway's International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI), under Project LEAP – Law Enforcement Assistance Programme to reduce tropical deforestation. The event brought together over 50 representatives from environmental police, forest authorities, financial intelligence units, and Public Prosecutors from five Latin American countries, with the objective of strengthening the integrated response to crimes such as illegal logging, trafficking of forest products, and clandestine gold mining.
The opening session featured the participation of Nicole Quijano-Evans, Deputy Chief of the UNODC's Global Program on Crimes that Affect the Environment, Marco Foddi, Programme Manager of INTERPOL's Environmental Security Sub-Directorate (ENS), Rannveig Formo, Senior Consultant of NICFI, Fabio Mertens, Interim Director of International Cooperation and Head of INTERPOL's National Central Bureau in Brasilia, and Humberto Freire de Barros, Director of the Amazon and Environment at DAMAZ/PF, highlighting the multi-sectoral commitment to fighting environmental crimes through operational intelligence, cross-border cooperation, and tracking of the illicit financial flows.
The workshop aimed to consolidate and share LEAP results and define priorities for the next phase of the project, LEAP 3.0. Among the objectives were the analysis of emerging trends, such as the growth of illegal gold mining – an activity that contaminates rivers with mercury and is linked to human rights violations – and the promotion of integrated strategies between police agencies, forest authorities, and financial intelligence units.
The event highlighted the need to expand the use of technologies, such as satellite images and artificial intelligence, to monitor remote areas and identify crimes in real-time. Participants also discussed practical case studies, such as the connection between timber trafficking and money laundering through shell companies, and the importance of faster judicial processes to hold criminal networks accountable.
During the technical sessions, concrete advances of LEAP were presented, including digital forensics, cross-border operations, task forces and technical training of hundredsof agents in identifying timber, analyzing illegal supply chains, and detecting environmental license fraud. One of the highlights was the demonstration of remote monitoring equipment, as well as analytical software donated by the project to countries with limited enforcement infrastructure.
The debates and proposals from the workshop will be compiled into a technical report, with strategicguidelines for the implementation of the third phase of LEAP, an initiative that reinforces the commitment of INTERPOL and UNODC, supported by NIFCI, to align global efforts against crimes that threaten biodiversity and climate security, while highlighting the critical role of regional cooperation in protecting ecosystems like the Amazon.
LEAP 3.0 aims to expand cooperation between countries to investigate environmental crimes with cross-border impact, integrate technology into early warning systems, and strengthen the tracing of financial flows linked to deforestation and illegal mining, in partnership with financial intelligence units.
Latin America, home to critical biomes such as the Amazon and the Chaco, faces growing threats from transnational environmental crimes, which combine illegal resource extraction, corruption, and money laundering. Despite recent advances – such as the record reduction in deforestation in Brazil and Colombia – the region still suffers from criminal networks that exploit timber and minerals illegally, exacerbating environmental degradation and affecting indigenous and traditional communities. In line with its mandate as the main promoter of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), as well as its protocols on crimes that affect the environment, UNODC works to build responses to these practices, supporting countries in the implementation of the UNTOC through international cooperation, institutional capacity building, and promotion of integrated strategies.
A joint initiative of INTERPOL and UNODC funded by NICFI, LEAP was launched in 2018 and focuses on fighting these crimes through global information and intelligence sharing, international multi-agency cooperation, tailored capacity building for agents and front-line officers, intelligence-led enforcement, operational and analytical support, assistance to transnational investigations. Since its creation, the program has enabled operations such as ARCADIA LAC, which mobilized 12 countries from the region and resulted in the seizure of 1,200 tons of illegal timber (valued at US$700,000), as well as identifying trafficking routes and companies involved in document fraud, drug trafficking and corruption.
LEAP has provided a series of timber sampling, digital forensics support and analysis, revealing the business models behind sophisticated global criminal networks, and has trained specialized expert teams fostering law enforcement’s capacities to investigate forestry crimes more effectively. By addressing tropical deforestation, LEAP contributes to reducing climate change and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
