Environmental crimes are overlooked in global enforcement: an analysis of Interpol Red Notices

Journal article

Tackling environmental crime is an international priority, as stated by many individual nations and by multinational organizations such as Europol. Quantifiable evidence to highlight efforts to address environmental crimes, however, remains scant. We use Interpol Red Notices, a global enforcement tool used to apprehend criminals, including environmental criminals, to examine how environmental crime is represented in this database. Notwithstanding the fact that these Notices have evidenced utility in apprehending environmental criminals, we find low application of this tool in apprehension of these criminals, with only 21 Red Notices of a sample of 4,464 (of the 7,010 active Notices) published as of 3 December 2023 being for catagorized as for environmental crimes. We argue this may indicate gaps or weaknesses in environmental enforcement pathways, and suggest that barriers to use of global enforcement tools should be addressed.

Authors: Sinclair, SL; Rubino, EC; Veríssimo, D

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Journal: Oryx: The International Journal of Conservation
• Pages: 1-3
• Publication date: 2025-10-30
• Acceptance date: 2025-06-09
• DOI: 10.1017/s0030605325101592
• EISSN: 1365-3008
• ISSN: 0030-6053
• Language: English
• Keywords: Environmental crime; wildlife crime; Red Notice; Interpol; environmental law enforcement