This article focuses on the enforcement side of the fight against the illegal wildlife trade. Drawing on a case the author handled as a federal prosecutor in Manhattan—United States v. Bengis—the article explores how a typical international wildlife trafficking scheme may work in practice. By understanding how wildlife trafficking actually works—how a ring must work in many instances—we will be in a better position to know where traffickers necessarily must leave evidence. With such an understanding, law enforcement agents and prosecutors will be in a better position to gather the evidence they need to prove the case. And legislators and policymakers will be able to craft laws and enforcement policies that will help ensure that the full force of criminal law is employed in the fight against wildlife trafficking.
Part I of this article provides a brief, high-level overview of the Bengis scheme, examining some of the methods the ring used in its decade-long fish trafficking scheme and focusing on where the co-conspirators had to leave behind the evidence that law enforcement later would use to catch them. Part II focuses on the investigation and prosecutions of the ring in South Africa and in the United States, highlighting how the evidence that the ring members necessarily left behind ultimately was used to disrupt their criminal organization and bring them to justice. Finally, Part III provides some lessons learned from the Bengis prosecution to highlight some of the challenges law enforcement faces in investigating and prosecuting wildlife trafficking. It also offers several reform proposals that legislators and policymakers (both in the United States and abroad) might consider in their efforts to bolster the legal landscape, with an eye toward giving prosecutors and agents better tools in the fight against traffickers.
