In September 2015 over 40 law enforcement officials completed a three day comprehensive wildlife crime training course held in Accra, Ghana and in Dakar, Senegal. Ninety percent of all trade is conducted via maritime containers. Annually less that two percent are inspected. Therefore risk profiling of shipments and intelligence led interdiction are crucial to detecting illicit flows of wildlife and timber products to combat this form of organised crime. The workshops were designed to strengthen the investigation skills of the participants to enable further successful detection and seizure of illicit wildlife products at sea ports in West Africa.

The course was jointly organised by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the World Customs Organization (WCO), with collaboration between the UNODC-WCO Container Control Programme and UNODC's Global Programme for Combating Wildlife and Forest Crime. Participants in the courses included Police Officers, Customs Officers and representatives from Environmental Ministries.

The participants covered a range of topics such as utilising sources of information and identification, CITES regulations and procedures for checking CITES permits, indicators to identify high-risk shipping containers, concealment methods, controlled delivery techniques, and facilitating inter agency cooperation and information exchange.

For further information, please access: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/wildlife-and-forest-crime/global-programm…