It took three years of investigations conducted by Earth League International (Eli), the first intelligence agency for the Planet, working side by side with the Dutch national committee of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (Iucn). A long and not risk-free effort that has ultimately borne fruit: five of the most significant jaguar traffickers across all of South America have been brought to justice. The five individuals, all Chinese nationals, are now being held in La Paz.

Earth League International @EarthLeagueInt

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#Bolivian authorities arrested 5 of South America’s top jaguar traffickers following a 3-year investigation by ELI as part of “OP Jaguar”, a project launched in 2018 by @IUCNNL , in collab with ELI and @ifawglobal funded by the Dutch Postcode Lottery earthleagueinternational.org/2021/10/31/bol…

♥ 20 4 nov 2021 · Apri su X →

Why jaguar parts are smuggled

It all stems from the black market for tiger parts. Traditional medicine attributes beneficial properties to certain parts of these animals; as if that were not enough, their fangs are also turned into jewellery, regarded as a status symbol. In Asia, however, tigers are scarce; fewer than 4,000 remain in the wild, explains Earth League International founder Andrea Crosta. Criminal organisations, though, have not resigned themselves to losing such a lucrative source of income. "Unfortunately, jaguar bones are so large, and their teeth so big, that they can be sold as wild tiger," he reveals.

This explains the existence of a vast criminal network that smuggles jaguar parts between Asia and South America. The phenomenon becomes even more alarming when one considers that the jaguar is classified as "near threatened" on the Iucn Red List. Between 130,000 and 208,000 remain in the wild, of which 2,000–3,000 are in Bolivia.

How Eli and Iucn's "Operation Jaguar" unfolded

Once the problem had been identified, Eli and Iucn launched a lengthy investigative operation as far back as 2017, named "Operation Jaguar". "On one side there are investigators working undercover. Across our entire organisation, only three of us know their identities," explains Crosta. "My right-hand man, who comes from the FBI, and I liaise with law enforcement, both local and international. We make the information we have gathered freely available to help them arrest these individuals. Then there are four analysts who, using certain software, process the information provided by the team and cross-reference it with data obtained from documents and the web." As early as 2020, Earth League International and the Iucn Dutch national committee had already revealed the dynamics of the smuggling trade — directed exclusively towards China — through a report.

Jaguar traffickers between Bolivia and China dismantled

In doing so, Eli and Iucn managed to identify fifty individuals involved and, from there, to focus on the five jaguar traffickers at the top of the pyramid. "Across all of South America we are trying to shift attention onto those truly responsible, not the small fry. In Bolivia it is the local poacher who kills the jaguar, but he does so because behind him there is a trafficker offering him 22 dollars for a pair of teeth. In his eyes, that is an enormous sum. Yet those teeth are resold for 400 dollars already in South America and, once in China, for 4,000–5,000 dollars," Andrea Crosta continues. "We focus precisely on the most important figures, gather intelligence and ultimately help to have them arrested. This is the hardest part because local law enforcement often lacks the means and expertise, or even simply the ability to translate from Chinese."

Following the success in Bolivia, Earth League International is expanding its investigation to other South American countries. The Andes and the Amazon, which rank among the world's most biodiverse places, are at the very centre of these criminal networks' sights. At a global level, environmental crimes (poaching, wildlife trafficking, illegal logging and illegal fishing) are estimated to be growing at a rate of 7 per cent per year, representing a turnover of 260 billion dollars.