Takeaways on how can trade data trace illegal flows of timber?

Speakers: Camilo Pardo-Herrera, Senior Analyst, Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) at George Mason University; Fred Ellis, Wildlife Trade Analyst and Financial Specialist, TRAFFIC.

• Understanding trade discrepancies: Trade discrepancies refer to the difference between recorded trade values and the expected logical values, which can be identified through various mismatches such as importing and exporting country records, comparison between paid prices and market prices and differences between weight/volume recorded and physical properties of the shipped items.

• Trade discrepancies can highlight risks of illegal trade activities, such as undervaluation to avoid tariffs or overvaluation for laundering illicit funds. Comparing discrepancies across multiple datasets can evince patterns consistent with illegal trade, though they do not directly constitute evidence of a crime.

• Case studies of Peruvian wood and gold as well as Vietnamese wood were shared during the session, helping to exemplify the use of data comparison, including trade values, prices, and volume discrepancies in reported figures. More information is available in the slides.

• TimberStats, a new trade-data platform: this interactive, data-driven platform analyses publicly available trade data to identify potential discrepancies and risks related to illegal timber. The platform can direct relevant agencies towards high-risk routes and investigate the ships and companies trading high-risk commodities.

• Law enforcement and customs can conduct simple analysis to highlight high-risk trade routes for timber, and the specific 6-digit commodity types that are most affected. This allows for better allocation of resources to check and verify documentation, or conduct search and seizure operations on shipping containers to verify their contents (use in combination with upcoming tools such as WoodID, soon to be available for Cameroon, Republic of Congo, Vietnam and China, to verify timber species).

• TimberStats is freely accessible via TRAFFIC’s Wildlife Trade Portal under the ‘Other Tools’ tab. It currently covers 79 countries in South America, sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia and is available in English and Chinese, with French and Vietnamese language versions to follow.

• It is important to highlight expected differences between Free on Board (FOB) and Cost, Insurance, and Freight (CIF) values, which are around 10-20%. Discrepancies beyond this range could signal potential inconsistencies or deliberate misreporting.

The full recording of the presentation from the 25 November Open Data working group meeting is available here: