Page 182 - Supplemento 2-2016 (ENG)

Jorge rios

Even when suspected criminals are apprehended, prosecution remains
weak.

During recent trips to Africa we spoke to wildlife crime prosecutors in a
number of countries to better understand the low prosecution rates for wildlife
criminals. Looking at various court files, we noticed that many of them seemed
incomplete – they lacked dates, names of witnesses, lists of evidence. We found
poor case management – cases arriving overly late to prosecutors, or vanishing
entirely; information not being made available to judges in advance of hearings.
We discovered legislative loopholes, which defence lawyers are only too happy
to exploit.

The chain of custody of evidence, from crime scene to court room, is not
robust, making it difficult to put together well-prepared wildlife crime cases. We
know of cases where crime scene management is so poor, with exhibits misma-
naged and contaminated, and sometimes even forgotten at the crime scene.

A lack of admissible evidence is a major challenge in successfully prose-
cuting wildlife criminals.

There is a lack of cooperation, oversight and quality assurance between
police, investigators and prosecutors regarding the preparation of wildlife
crime cases. In one African country, an analysis of wildlife crime prosecutions
between 2008-2013 showed that that over 64% of cases did not have sufficient
evidence to even justify a charge in the first place.

When wildlife criminals were convicted, the sentences were far too
lenient: in the same period, only 4% of sentences were custodial; 96% were not.
Even the non-custodial sentences, the fines, that were handed down were
usually below the maximum possible fine.

Foreign offenders seem to be treated more leniently than national offen-
ders. When foreigners were caught, they would usually plead guilty, pay a fine
equivalent to about USD 10,000 and then leave the country. Criminal networks
are not deterred by fines, and instead regard them as a cost of doing business.

At UNODC we frequently receive formal requests from Member States
for support in fighting wildlife crime. We believe that before we provide techni-
cal assistance, we first need to identify where our intervention will have the
most impact. To ensure that our technical assistance to Member States is rele-

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