Part 2 of the Wildlife crime – understanding risks, avenues for action learning series provides companies, policy makers, practitioners and law enforcement with information and background knowledge on crime and corruption in the exotic pet trade.
2. Introduction to the exotic pet trade
2.5. Online trade
Much of the transnational pet trade is coordinated online, particularly at the retail end. This provides multiple opportunities to launder illegally procured or trafficked pets into the legal trade. Through trading platforms, online shops and social media sites, traffickers and consumers easily find one another and arrange transactions.
Online sales platforms often have not established or do not enforce wildlife trade policies and rarely provide clear information on relevant legislation and/or policies regarding trade in wildlife and/or live animals, including for CITES-listed species (UNODC, 2020). The lack of controls, regulations or oversight allow traders formerly convicted of illegally selling wildlife to openly sell wildlife online (Crook & Van der Henst, 2020).
For more information on this aspect of the illegal pet trade, see the Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online. The multi-stakeholder collaboration brings together tech companies across the world with WWF, TRAFFIC and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) with the aim of preventing online trafficking of wildlife.