Transnational organized environmental crime

Based on three case studies of transnational organized environmental crime, this chapter, on the one hand, aims to illustrate some direct and indirect harm caused by environmental black markets. On the other hand, it aims to critically assess the often artificial distinction between organized and corporate crime in environmental crimes. Since the 1990s, so-called green criminologists have critically studied the environment in the broadest sense of the word, focusing on various forms of environmental harm, crime and regulation, often drawing parallels between ecological and socioeconomic or political inequalities. Waste crime is the trade, treatment or disposal of waste in ways that breach international or domestic environmental legislation and cause harm or risk to the environment and human health. Wildlife crime is one of the areas that have long been recognized as a key environmental crisis. Many species, both big and small, are on the brink of extinction or have gone extinct because of trade and poaching.