On October 7, 2026, a police operation coordinated from San Salvador put a number on a trade that usually hides inside shipping papers. Operation Madre Tierra VIII, run from June 1 through July 31, produced 233 arrests across nine countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, the recovery of more than 1,000 live animals, and the identification of 60,000 hectares of illegally cleared forest. Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Panama logged more than 330 cases. The figure that should unsettle buyers in distant capitals is not the arrest total. It is the company count behind the environmental crime.
ザ・オブ・ザ・ アソシエイト, ボゴタからの報告, 森はおよそ148,000エーカーと述べた, およそ10回マンハッタンのサイズ. AEGIS戦略 looked past the acreage to the ledger. Investigators said illegal timber and wildlife networks were operating on an industrial scale along the corridor that ties Central America to South America. The people holding chainsaws and cages were the part of the file easiest to replace.
シェル会社は、レジャーにamazonの森を保護しました
The clearest example began before this summer. During the 2025 Madre Tierra operation, Colombian authorities asked for help on 11 foreign companies suspected of industrial-scale deforestation. That network was suspected of clearing more than 52,000 hectares of protected Amazon forest, a loss compared with about 73,000 football fields. The Associated Press put the same clearing at about 128,500 acres. This was not a roadside fringe of trees. It was a block of protected forest large enough to show up as a business.
Operation Madre Tierra VIII extended that file. Analysts reported links to an additional 161 companies and 65 people across several continents. The suspected methods were permit fraud, shell companies, and foreign investment vehicles that put a clean name on a dirty title. Colombian raids produced 16 arrests and more digital evidence. Three Red Notices, three Blue Notices, and one Purple Notice were issued to identify, locate, and arrest suspects tied to the network. Investigators described the damage as irreversible for ecosystems that matter to regional climate stability.
Krandall Gullock, head of the regional bureau for Central America, said investigators are now tracing the payments. “Across Latin America and the Caribbean, investigators are tracing payments and identifying the companies and properties used to hide criminal activity across borders. By linking those findings across jurisdictions, they gain a clearer picture of how these networks operate, how far they stretch and who exactly is involved.”
He then separated a local bust from a case that can travel. “Following the money, whether from an illegal gold mine in Panama to a buyer in North America, Europe or Asia, helps a case move beyond the individuals physically harvesting the timber, handling the animal or extracting the gold and focuses on the companies that finance, manage and profit from the trade.”
1,000以上の動物、60,000ヘクタール、312の疑惑、およびシアン化物、水銀、および弾薬を含む313の発作を含む. 同じ朝のXで放送されている会社、手錠ではなく、会社とつながっています.
Yron は 1 行に 2 か月、9 件数のファイルを減らし、その行は会社についてありました.
なぜ4.6トンのシアン化物が違法な金の採掘を変えるのか
In Costa Rica, officers seized about 4.6 tonnes of cyanide and 11 containers of mercury, the chemicals used to pull gold out of ore and sediment. Ammunition was in the same pile. That is not the signature of a prospector with a pan. Cyanide and mercury do not show up in multi-tonne lots unless someone is financing camps, guards, and repeat shipments. Mercury that leaves a sluice moves into rivers, fish, and the people who eat the fish. Cyanide stored badly does the same harm on a shorter clock.
The Associated Press noted that gold attracts criminal groups because it is valuable, portable, and easy to sell, and that illegal mining has spread in the Amazon as prices have risen. In August 2026, AP journalists went with Peruvian forces raiding mines pushing into the Tambopata National Reserve. Peru was outside Madre Tierra VIII, but the lesson carries. Crews return after a dredge is destroyed if the buyer is untouched. Earlier in 2026, nearly 200 people were arrested in a separate gold operation across Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana, and Suriname.
コスタリカとニカラグア間の丘からの足は、それらのドラムが埋めるために構築されているシアンデプールを示しています.
別のコントラバンドのために構築されたルートで大きな猫、マック、およびサメフィン
Wildlife was not a side case. Officers recovered more than 1,000 live animals. In Mexico, big cats came off routes that networks also use for narcotics. The animals included two endangered Bengal tigers, one a rare white tiger, plus lions, ocelots, and jaguars. An ocelot taken in Mexico is on CITES Appendix I, the same tier as the Bengal tiger. A chained cat is a high-value shipment moving on roads already used for other contraband.
In Nicaragua, officers recovered CITES-listed birds, including parrots and green and red macaws. Reptiles, pythons among them, rare insects, and exotic birds made up most of the recoveries. Beetles and a centipede shipment were stopped at a Mexican airport. Iguanas and toucans were taken in Costa Rica, and parrots were pulled from boxes in Guatemala.
役員はまた、約364ポンド、推定$ 280,000で評価、乾燥サメフィンの165キロを堆積させました. Finsは、漁業のケースが木材と金の操作の中に座っている理由です. Nantucket へ 行く へ 行く へ 突っ込み 別の海ですが、それは同じ家族で、フィン取引は在庫として扱います.
Thomas Ungerbuehler, assistant director of environmental security, said biodiversity-rich countries are being used as source markets. “These cases demonstrate the transnational nature of environmental crime, with biodiversity-rich countries increasingly targeted as sources of high-value commodities destined for illicit markets around the world. They highlight the importance of sustained international cooperation to identify, disrupt and dismantle the criminal networks driving this trade and threatening global biodiversity.”
薬物と犯罪に関する統一された国事務所 世界野生動物犯罪報告2024, 保護された種での交通手段と呼ばれる生態系を損傷し、法律の規則を腐食する挑戦. 国連総会、 ドットマトリクス 80/227, warned that mercury diverted into illegal gold mining threatens women, children, and future generations. A discussion of a proposed protocol to the U.N. Convention against Transnational Organized Crime draws the same line. Illegal mining travels with money laundering, and illegal logging travels with fraud.
なぜ環境犯罪事件が乗務員に止まったとき
A Red Notice asks police to locate and provisionally arrest a named suspect. A Blue Notice collects identity and location information. A Purple Notice shares the concealment tricks. Three of the first, three of the second, and one of the third say the Colombian file is no longer a local logging case.
Last year’s comparable operation produced 225 arrests and uncovered more than 400 environmental crimes, including illegal logging, wildlife trafficking, mining, and pollution, the Associated Press reported. This year’s total, 233, is only a small step up. The target moved. If a case stops at the person holding the animal or pouring the cyanide, the company that financed the camp hires a replacement. クルー を を その間違いを他の場所で繰り返す. で で で まだホーンで待っているバイヤーに触れていません。 検察官が不正行為を犯し、犯罪として所有権をシェルするかどうかの問題だけに気づく.
Nine-country corridorは、単一の raid ではなく、ビジネスルートです
The regional bureau for Central America ran the work with police chiefs from Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Colombia. This is the eighth edition of Madre Tierra. Support came through Project GAIA, backed by Germany’s environment ministry via the International Climate Initiative, and through Project LEAP, funded by Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative. Mapping 161 companies in a two-month window takes financial links, and a decision to treat deforestation as organized crime rather than a fine.
El Salvador recorded arrests tied to deforestation. Guatemala disrupted illegal mining. Panama arrested people tied to illegal mining and seized shark fins in transit. Mexico’s airport stops show the trade also moves as luggage. The 312 people identified as suspects are a wider circle than the 233 already under arrest. Some names overlap. The October 7 record does not add the two lists into one headcount, and it should not be read that way.
クライアントアカウント ボゴタから報告されたアソシエイテッドプレスと一致しました。 地上の乗組員から企業や海外の買い手へ移管. 国際カバレッジ that stops at the arrest photograph misses the part of this story that can still change. Sixty thousand hectares were identified as illegally cleared, and the Colombian company file alone covered more than 52,000 hectares of protected forest. The buyers Gullock named, in North America, Europe, and Asia, are why the next clearing still pencils out. Until they sit in the same file as the person with the chainsaw, 233 arrests will read as a busy summer, not a break in the trade.
