South America Private Sector Dialogue explores financial crime links to illegal mining and deforestation

The urgent need to tackle financial crimes linked to illegal gold mining was the focus of a major convening of banks, financial intelligence units (FIUs) and law enforcement authorities co-organised by World Resources Institute as part of its contribution, inter alia, to the work of the Nature Crime Alliance.

The first South America Private Sector Dialogue (PSD) took place 11-12 December in Lima, Peru, and brought together 60 participants from governments and FIUs from Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Argentina, the United Kingdom, and the United States, alongside nine banks and ten civil society and academic institutions. 

Improving understanding of financial crime linked to environmental crime

The PSD aimed to strengthen collaboration between the public and private sectors and increase participants’ understanding of risk indicators, red flags, modus operandi, and typologies of financial crimes linked to illegal mining and logging, with 95% of attendees noting they had gained new information from the sessions.

Alongside positive feedback to the PSD from participants, it was also noted that the information shared during the session could support improvements in the number and quality of suspicious transaction reports related to environmental crime.

Urgent need to address financial crime linked to illegal gold

The meeting underscored the urgent need to tackle financial crimes linked to the mining sector, particularly illegal gold mining, which remains a major driver of environmental destruction, corruption, and organised crime across South America. This urgency is heightened by the global rise in gold demand and trade, coupled with an increasingly complex geopolitical landscape, which together create heightened risks of illicit financial flows entering formal markets.

The South America Dialogue was chaired by Vinicius Santana, Global Head of AML/CFT at Itaú Bank (Brazil) and was coordinated by Lynn Schlingemann, Senior Associate, Financial Crime and Corruption, WRI. It was organised by UNODC, INTERPOL, United for Wildlife, and WRI, and was funded by the Government of Norway through the UNODC–INTERPOL Programme LEAP, and separately supported by the US Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL).