STOP AMAZON CRIME

Across Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, illicit gold mining, drug trafficking, illegal logging, wildlife trafficking, fuel smuggling and related activities have merged into interconnected criminal economies that span borders and feed into global supply chains. These networks are increasingly capturing territories, weakening institutions, accelerating climate and biodiversity loss, and undermining Indigenous governance. State based strategies that prioritize repression and militarization have failed to contain this process. Protecting the Amazon requires supporting and strengthening the Indigenous territorial governance systems that have sustained it for generations.

The negotiations around the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) represent a unique opportunity to rethink how the world addresses environmental crime as a governance and climate challenge. The Amazon demonstrates that organized crime cannot be addressed solely through law enforcement or military responses. It stems from governance failures, human rights violations, environmental destruction, and global markets that finance criminal economies without real accountability.

The Colombia–Ecuador–Peru border, one of the most biodiverse, contested, and volatile corridors on the planet, illustrates how criminal governance increasingly transcends national borders. Armed groups, like the Comandos de la Frontera (CDF), regulate movement, control river corridors, recruit Indigenous youth, influence local economies, and insert themselves into community decision-making. Meanwhile, geopolitical shifts and foreign intervention continue to reshape territorial dynamics. The United States has increased its intervention in the region through the launch of the Shield of the Americas initiative, framing anti-crime responses as a “war against foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs).”