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.
这个 美联社大约是曼哈顿的10倍。 AEGIS联盟 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.
贝壳公司如何将受保护的阿马松森林变成分类账
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.”
发表这些评论后公布的数字包括了1 000多只活生生的动物、60 000公顷、312名嫌疑人和313起扣押事件,其中包括氰化物、汞和弹药。 当天上午在X台播出的一则节目是和公司一起播出的,而不是手铐.
Chyron将两个月,九国档案缩减为一行,一行是关于公司.
4.6吨氰化物为何改变非法采金业
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.
从哥斯达黎加和尼加拉瓜之间的山上取出脚印,显示这些桶所填充的氰化物池。
大猫、金刚鹦鹉和鲨鱼鳍 在其他违禁品的路线上
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.
官员还缉获了165公斤干鱼翅,约364磅,价值约280 000美元。 鱼鳍的行走很顺利,这就是为什么一个渔业案件 坐在一个木材和黄金作业中。 一个被困在南塔克特岸外的大白种人 是一个不同的海洋, 但它是相同的家族 鱼鳍贸易作为库存。
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.”
联合国毒品和犯罪问题办事处 2024年世界野生生物犯罪报告将贩运受保护物种称为破坏生态系统并破坏法治的挑战。 联合国大会, 第80/227号决议, 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.
为什么环境犯罪案件 停止在船员
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. 覆盖船员而忽略分类账 在别处重复这个错误。 在克虏格发现疑似盗猎者死亡的游骑兵 仍然没有碰买主 等待喇叭。 只有在检察官将允许欺诈和空壳所有权视为犯罪,而不是围绕欺诈和空壳所有权的文件的情况下,通知才重要。
九国走廊是一条商业通道,不是一条突袭
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.
今日的印度账户 和美联社从波哥大报道的一样 调查人员从地面人员转移到公司和海外买家。 国际覆盖面 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.
