Takeaways on financial flows associated with the illegal wildlife trade in South Africa

Speakers: Johan Jooste, National Section Commander for Wildlife Trafficking at the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI), and Shelley Brown, Senior Manager of the Financial Crime Intelligence Unit at the ABSA Group.

• As members of the South African Anti-Money Laundering Integrated Task Force (SAMLIT) Expert Working Group on Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT), the speakers shared their experiences, focusing on the structure used, the challenges of working together and the potential for better collaboration between the various stakeholders to ensure compliance.
• Their experiences highlighted the importance of close collaboration between law enforcement and the private sector in tackling illegal wildlife trade in order to understand financial flows and criminal typologies.
• Speakers explored the complexities of the criminal supply chain in South Africa, highlighting the importance of understanding the communication flows, channels and tools used to improve understanding of the operational level and the role of corruption in facilitating illegal wildlife trade (IWT).
• Successful case studies and prosecutions were presented to illustrate cooperation and financial intelligence's effectiveness in securing convictions against wildlife traffickers. This demonstrated the paradigm shift towards integrated efforts against IWT.

The full recording of the presentation from the 15 May Follow-the-Money Working Group meeting is available here: