Picture man-made environmental destruction in Latin America. Massive hydroelectric projects, unfettered agricultural expansion and major mining and oil projects probably come to mind. But so too, experts say, should organized crime, which has drawn increasing blame in recent years for severe and widespread environmental damage in Latin America and the rest of the developing world—and is proving extremely difficult to curb.

Criminal groups, including several based in Latin America, are fueling a surge in environmental crimes worldwide and bringing in as much as US$258 billion in annual income as a result, according to a report released June 4 in Nairobi by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and Interpol. The illicit earnings are only surpassed in value by drug smuggling, counterfeiting and human trafficking, the report says.

Authorities are thus far at a loss to stem the ecologically destructive activities, which range from illegal logging and mining to wildlife smuggling and illicit dumping of hazardous waste. Illegal groups, increasingly transnational by nature, often have millions of dollars at their disposal and are adept at the use of shell companies, tax fraud, money laundering and the Internet. National law enforcement authorities, by contrast, dedicate few of their resources to environmental crime. International enforcement agencies, such as Interpol and others, have a mere $20-30 million available annually to fight it, according to the report.

In Latin America, the effects of that imbalance are ever more manifest. “Drug cartels in Latin America are increasingly diversifying into environmental crimes that represent lower risk and less competition, as well as more opportunities for money laundering,” says Christian Nellemann, the report’s lead author and the director of the Rhipto Rapid Response – Norwegian Center for Global Analyses, an Oslo-based nonprofit that provides information and analysis on crime for U.N. agencies. “From dumping hazardous waste and using fake permits for illegal logging in Brazil to illegal gold mining in Colombia and Peru, these groups and others are moving into activities that have long been considered soft crimes by law enforcement agencies.”

The impacts will be long-term. Environmental crimes lead to deforestation, chemical dumping and other activities, and cause a “loss of ecosystem services such as clean air and clean water, extreme weather mitigation, food security and even health and well-being,” says the report.

The investigation confirms information from a slew of other studies by United Nations agencies and nongovernmental organizations released in recent months. Those studies similarly detail an explosive growth in environmental crime traced to traditional mafia groups and drug cartels as well as to family clans and less formal crime networks. The result, they report, is widespread environmental harm.

In Colombia and Peru, the world’s leading producers of cocaine, the crackdown on drug trafficking since 2000 has helped push drug cartels into the safer but environmentally destructive black market gold mining business, according to a report released in April by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, a Geneva, Switzerland-based network of experts from law enforcement and other areas. Today, close to 30% of the gold mined in Peru and 80% in Colombia is illegally produced, with hundreds of mines and thousands of miners either directly controlled by the illegal groups or paying them taxes. Meanwhile, the value of illegal gold exports, estimated at a combined $4.6 billion for the two countries, has soared to exceed their exports of cocaine and heroin, worth between $2 billion and $3 billion collectively.

In Colombia, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Marxist rebel group which signed a peace agreement with the Colombian government on June 23, has historically been a major power in the drug trade, kidnapping and extortion. In recent years, it also has been earning up to 20% of its revenue from gold mining, especially in the central Andean states and the Amazon basin, according to the report. Former right-wing paramilitary groups, also involved in drugs and extortion, are other big players in the business. In Peru, illegal gold mining, proliferating in the southeastern departments of Cusco and Madre de Dios is in the hands of local criminal clans as well as Chinese and Russian crime groups. In June 2014, Peruvian authorities arrested a leader of La ’Ndrangheta, an Italian mafia group and major importer of cocaine into Europe. They accused him of using his stake in a gold and iron mine to launder drug profits.

With such foes, undermanned and under-funded environmental authorities face daunting challenges. They are often unable to regulate, monitor and enforce environmental standards in mining areas, experts say. Madre de Dios, near the border of Bolivia and Brazil, is filled with thousands of illegal miners, mining camps of wooden shacks with plastic sheeting and large water-filled craters created by heavy machinery working day and night in pursuit of gold. A study by the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University found that deforestation in that department of the Amazon tripled during 2008-12 to more than 6,000 hectares (23 square miles) per year, with some estimates putting total mining-related forest loss there at over 100,000 hectares (386 square miles) today. The rich alluvial soil used by local inhabitants for cultivation in many areas has disappeared, rivers have become clogged with silt, and several species of fish show elevated levels of mercury, used to separate gold from surrounding rock. On May 23, the Peruvian government issued an emergency decree for the region to attend to mercury-related health problems, which can include brain, kidney and lung damage. It also began a process intended to increase medical assistance, water treatment and environmental monitoring in the region. (See “Mercury from mining prompts emergency in Peru”—EcoAméricas, May ’16.)

How successful that will be, however, is anyone’s guess. In early 2011, the government of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos ordered helicopters bearing elite commandos to descend on dozens of illegal gold mines controlled or taxed by paramilitary and guerrilla forces. But illegal mining continues to thrive in Colombia, causing widespread deforestation, river contamination and some of the highest levels of mercury pollution in the world.

“Artisanal and small-scale mining has been present for centuries in Latin America,” says Quinn Kepes, an expert on gold mining at Verité, a U.S. nonprofit that investigates labor rights and released a report on the mining problem on July 28. “However, the recent expansion of illegal mining as a result of the incursion of organized crime increases the scale immensely and creates devastating environmental and social consequences. It feeds off poor and vulnerable people who are either recruited or forced to work in mines and results in the investment of huge amounts of capital to deforest and mine thousands and thousands of hectares of forest. The authorities are often outgunned. We’ve seen protected areas in Peru between Madre de Dios and Cusco where law enforcement is afraid to enter because miners are armed to the teeth.”

Says Livia Wagner, private sector advisor to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime: “This is not only the responsibility of the government, but that of private sector gold companies who are not doing enough to ensure that illicit products from organized crime [don’t enter] their supply chain after being laundered.”

Syndicates, some linked to drug trafficking, also have moved into the illegal timber trade. In 2013, Interpol, alongside law enforcement agencies in 12 Latin American nations, launched “Operation Lead,” arresting 200 people and seizing 2,000 truckloads of timber to sever the link between criminal groups and the illegal logging business. But, as in illegal mining, those groups are skilled and powerful. They are adept at falsifying logging permits and selling wood from wild forests as plantation timber, according to a 2012 UNEP-Interpol report, which estimated that 50% to 90% of timber in the Amazon basin comes from illegal operations. In 2009, a Brazilian prosecutor even alleged that some 3,000 companies in the Amazonian state of Pará were exporting illegal timber as eco-certified. That allowed them to earn premiums for sustainable harvesting in the U.S., Europe and Asia. (See “With raids, Interpol targets illegal timber”—EcoAméricas, March ’13.)

The illegal transfer of hazardous waste is another growing source of concern. In 2014 alone, the world generated an estimated 41.8 million metric tons of electronic waste, much of it toxic. Of that, waste that brought in an estimated US$12.5 to $18.8 billion in income for those handling it was disposed of informally, without registration or outright illegally, according to a 2015 UNEP report on the issue. This has created an immense opportunity for criminals, with Brazil serving as a major dumping ground for discarded electronics ranging from cellphones to computers, experts say.

During 2008-09, for example, 89 containers with more than 1,500 tons of computer fragments, plastics, batteries, syringes and other waste were illegally exported from companies in the west of England by ship to Brazilian ports, leading to eventual criminal convictions and fines in a London court in 2013. “Waste represents a huge opportunity for criminals,” says Nellemann of the Rhipto Rapid Response – Norwegian Center for Global Analyses. “It is often unclear who is checking and controlling it and there are no good statistics on it, which makes it very easy to bypass international regulations. Because of that, it’s possible that hazardous waste dumping is quite serious in other parts of Latin America as well.”

Wildlife trafficking from Latin America presents yet another daunting problem. A 2015 study by Defenders of Wildlife, a U.S. nonprofit, examined wildlife seizures by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service during 2004-13, and found a substantial uptick toward the end of the period, with nearly half of the shipments coming from Mexico and substantial percentages coming from Haiti and El Salvador. Caribbean queen conch (Strombus gigas), a protected mollusk coveted in Latin communities in the United States for its meat and its shell, ranked among the most trafficked items. So did sea turtle meat and eggs, and shoes and other leather items made from crocodile, caiman and sea turtle skin. Among protected live animals, parrots and parakeets topped the list, with Mexico the largest illegal exporter, followed by Peru, Colombia, Costa Rica and Paraguay.

Bob Dreher, senior vice president for conservation programs at Defenders and until recently associate director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, says it is impossible to pin down the origins of that wildlife, as those countries were merely the last place the shipments appeared before they arrived in the United States. Moreover, it is difficult to know the extent to which they were in the hands of organized crime. “In most cases, however, we’re not talking about individual items, we’re talking about strong illegal and commercial activity,” he says.

A clear case of organized crime participation, detected by U.S. law enforcement, is the smuggling into the United States of totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi) bladders by Mexican drug cartels. Bladders of totoaba, an endangered fish endemic to the Gulf of California, fetch up to $10,000 apiece for use in Asian soups in the United States and double that in China. Capture of the fish in gill nets is associated with the death of the critically endangered vaquita (Phocoena sinus), a porpoise also endemic to the Gulf, which ends up as bycatch. (See “Mexico plans 11th-hour drive to save vaquita”—EcoAméricas, March ’15.) Says Dreher: “Biodiversity loss from wildlife trafficking is a terrible threat to Latin American countries and requires them to work with international agencies... The U.S., meanwhile, which has only 126 Fish and Wildlife inspectors for the entire country, needs to dramatically step up staffing and resources to address the problem.”

Focused efforts of this sort will be the key to combating environmental crimes, experts agree. Costa Rica took a step in that direction earlier this year, for example, by forming an Environmental Security Commission to coordinate with domestic law enforcement agencies and possibly Interpol on criminal gangs involved in illegal logging, wildlife smuggling and other environmental crimes. Analysts believe Brazil has shown the greatest such success. During 2004-11, Brazil reduced its deforestation rate over 75% by creating new protected areas, increasing monitoring and enforcement, and empowering the police and prosecutors to pursue environmental criminals.

Says Nellemann: “You don’t stop organized crime through awareness campaigns, you need to have unity of command, as Brazil did in the executive branch, and a single focal point for enforcement, as Brazil did in the police, to tackle everything from tax fraud and money laundering to the use of shell companies and the mass plundering of natural resources.”