Today, ACi welcomed Alex Hofford of Cambridge Pacific to deliver a webinar exploring the connections between anti-money laundering compliance and the fight against wildlife crime, drawing on two decades of experience spanning field investigation and environmental compliance.
Alex opened with a first-hand account from Hong Kong, where a pattern of escalating ivory seizures led him to investigate the territory’s endangered species licensing data. He uncovered evidence that the legal ivory trade was masking a parallel illegal trade, and set out how proceeds typically move through the financial system via the familiar stages of placement, layering and integration. A key theme was public-private partnership: field data from his investigations was shared, via the charity Liberty Asia, with third-party database providers including LexisNexis WorldCompliance, LSEG World-Check and Dow Jones, feeding into the screening tools used by banks. This collaborative approach contributed to Hong Kong’s ban on the ivory trade in 2021.
The second half turned to practical resources for compliance professionals. Alex walked through FATF’s recommendations on illegal wildlife trade, covering risk assessment, due diligence and information sharing, and highlighted four resources from the NGO sector: Themis, LexisNexis, TRAFFIC and the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
As Alex noted in closing, illegal wildlife trade is estimated by INTERPOL to generate between USD 7 billion and USD 23 billion annually. Its proceeds move through the same regulated financial channels as any other criminal activity, meaning the tools already familiar to AML professionals have real potential to disrupt it.
For those who would like to explore the case study in more depth, Alex has written it up in full for ACi: “Using Hong Kong’s Anti-Money Laundering Laws to Combat the Illegal Wildlife Trade,” which traces the WildAid campaign from its early market survey through to the 2021 ivory ban and beyond, including how Hong Kong’s wildlife laws were subsequently added to its Organised and Serious Crimes Ordinance.
Our thanks to Alex Hofford for sharing his experience and insight with the ACi community.