Samuel Wasser, University of Washington
Abstract:
Major transnational organized crimes have increased dramatically in the past decade, coincident with massive increases in legal containerized cargo shipped worldwide. The illegal ivory trade is no exception. I will describe our use of genetic tools to identify the locations of Africa’s major ivory poaching hotspots, as well as the number, scale and connectivity of the major transnational criminal organizations smuggling ivory out of Africa. These tools enable law enforcement to target the illegal ivory trade before the contraband enters transit where it becomes far more difficult and expensive to trace. They are also empowering financial crime investigations into these into these criminal networks, which is one of the most powerful tools available to identify, interdict, disrupt and dismantle transnational criminal organizations, as per Presidential Executive Order 2b (February 9, 2017).
Flyer File: wasser_samuel_qsb_flyer.pdf
