Mexican drug cartels are expanding their reach into wildlife crime. They’re strengthening their hold on the country’s legal fisheries and using them to launder illegally caught marine animals, according to a soon-to-be released report by the Brookings Institution.

The cartels previously had been linked to trafficking of marine species such as totoaba, as well as rosewood, a timber that is coveted for high-end furniture and musical instruments. But the Washington, D.C.-based think tank’s report indicates that the crime groups have recently stepped up their trafficking of wildlife species, often to China. In exchange, the cartels sometimes receive chemicals that can be converted into fentanyl or methamphetamine.

She reports that the body parts of jaguars in Mexico also are likely being smuggled out for use in traditional Chinese medicine. Reptiles, sea cucumbers, abalone, and shark fins, she adds, are trafficked from Mexico to China as well, sometimes via the U.S.

Organized crime infiltrated the fishing industry in phases, Felbab-Brown writes. First, cartels began exerting control over poachers who illegally take protected species such as totoaba, a big fish sought for its swim bladder for traditional Chinese medicine. Next, they targeted small-scale fishers of low-value seafood such as corvina and forced them to sell their goods solely to the cartels.

Felbab-Brown describes how during the past five years, the Sinaloa cartel has bought up Mexico’s permits for geoduck clams, a large mollusk sold to Chinese buyers. That gave them control over the legal geoduck clam fishing operations. The cartel also organized illegal clam fishing and laundered the illegal take.

“The cartels are in the extortion business,” he says. “You cannot work unless you pay them, and if you don’t pay them, they burn down your store or burn down your crops or your fishing vessels or kidnap you or someone in your family,” he says. “That’s happened all over Mexico.”

More than 80 environmental defenders were killed in the country from 2012 to 2019. Another 30 were killed in 2020 alone.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/mexican-cartels-are-expanding-into-wildlife-crime?

What chance do you have in convincing Mexican drug cartels and the stupid Chinese Medicine traders in stopping this destructive practice?