ELI’s 10th Anniversary Newsletter 
Support our work in 2023! Donate here. This month, ELI celebrates its 10-year anniversary! Since 2013, ELI has served as a pioneer in fighting wildlife and environmental crime through the use of professional intelligence, undercover operations, research and analysis. ELI’s has also served as a trailblazer in investigating and researching Environmental Crime Convergence. For over a decade, our team gathered and analyzed in information about the criminal exploitation of nature and has helped law enforcement and governmental authorities to investigate and take action against the most important wildlife traffickers and environmental criminals in the world. Through our work, we have revolutionized and expanded upon current conservation approaches, demonstrating the power and necessity of professional intelligence and analysis in the fight to protect the natural world. A Special Message from Dr. Jane Goodall 
“Earth League International has been working to create an intelligence agency for Earth. Why? Because it’s so desperately important to combat environmental crime, with the same determination and organization, as other global threats are tackled, such as terrorism, and the trafficking of humans and drugs.” -Dr. Jane Goodall The ELI team is grateful for the support of friends and collaborators likeDr. Jane Goodall. Her powerful and tireless efforts to protect and conserve the natural world has greatly inspired and informed our work. OUR STORY 
The African Elephant Poaching Crisis ELI’s origins are rooted in the personal and professional experiences of ourFounder and Executive Director, Andrea Crosta. Before ELI, Andrea spent 17 years in a parallel professional career as an international consultant to companies and governmental agencies on high-end security technologies, homeland security, anti-piracy, investigations, and risk management. It was while working in Kenya and Tanzania in 2010-2012 that Andrea was exposed to the scale and complex dynamics of the elephant poaching crisis, and the limits of tackling this problem mostly just with anti-poaching operations and awareness campaigns. Andrea saw first-hand theconvergence of wildlife and environmental crime with more serious crime across geographic boundaries and realized he needed to build an organization with the capacity to intervene at the highest level of environmental crime and to address its overlap with other criminal activities, as thesetransnational environmental crime networks had been operating and exploiting the natural world for decades without detection. He witnessed acritical failure and information gap among current environmental and wildlife conservation approaches to address and account for this threat. Thus,Andrea with a small team of former intelligence professionalsstarted work on a new kind of environmental NGO with the unique capacity and skillset to target and address the top environmental criminals and their international crime networks that underlie and perpetuate the destruction of Earth’s environment, resources, wildlife, and communities. “ELI works behind the scenes, often in secrecy, doing vital intelligence-gathering work that other NGOs and even governmental agencies cannot do, or don’t want to do.” -Mark Davis, ELI’s Head of Intelligence, fmr. FBI Special Agent 
Image: A high-level ivory trafficker identified by ELI’s investigations in Asia. 
You can learn more about ELI’s efforts to fight the complex international ivory trafficking supply chain in the Netflix documentaryThe Ivory Game. A DECADE OF WORK Reflecting On Our Achievements Over the last decade, ELI has worked around the world toprotect wildlife, forests, oceans, and biodiversitythrough undercover operations, intelligence gathering, research, and collaboration with key government and law enforcement authorities. We proudly reflect on some of our key accomplishments, including: Dozens of investigative missions in over 25 countries throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, and the AmericasThe conservation of endangered species, habitats, and biodiversity, such as marine life, jaguars, sharks, pangolins, elephants, rhinos, tigers, and forests.The identification of over 500 international environmental criminals and wildlife traffickersThe identification ofover 40 international environmental criminal networksThe arrests of dozens of people in Mexico, Bolivia, Thailand, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, and ChinaNumerous capacity-building trainings and knowledge-transfer meetings with law enforcement and government authoritiesThe sharing ofdozens of Confidential Intelligence Briefs (CIBs) and analytic reportswith governmental authorities and other stakeholders to address information gaps and enable action Our Operations 
Image: A top rhino horn trafficker identified by ELI’s investigators in Vietnam. As an organization, we have developed and maintained a variety of investigative operations around the world with the aim oftargeting the most important wildlife traffickers and environmental criminals in the world. We share some of our operations with the public, while others remain confidential to protect our team members and the integrity of our field research. Both our long-term operations and those launched in more recent years have yielded critical results and played a crucial role in the gathering of important information that it’s possible to collect only in the field directly from the people involved in the crimes, and the identification and arrests of top wildlife/environmental criminals around the world. Some of our operations include: Operation Jaguar: Jaguar Trafficking in Latin America and ChinaOperation Fake Gold:Protecting the Vaquita and Tackling Wildlife Trafficking in MexicoOperation Stella Maris:Shark Fin Trafficking from Latin America to AsiaOperation Hummingbird: Wildlife, Shark Fin and Seafood Trafficking in Costa RicaOperation Old World: Wildlife Trafficking from Asia to EuropeOperation Red Cloud:Rhino Horn Trafficking from Southern Africa to Vietnam and ChinaOperation Jane:Chimpanzee Rescue in AfricaOperation Mozart: Rhino horn and wildlife Trafficking in ThailandOperation Australia:Wildlife Trafficking in ThailandOperation Game Over: Ivory Trafficking from Eastern Africa to China, Hong Kong, and VietnamOperation Viewpoint:Ivory Trafficking at the Mombasa Port in Kenya 
You can learn more about ELI’s Operation and Fake Gold and our fight to protect and save the endangerd vaquita popoise by watching the National Geographic documentarySea of Shadows, which won the Sundance Film Festival in 2019 and was produced by Leonardo Dicaprio. 
Learn more about our operations here. 
“I believe that the ELI’s highly skilled team and intelligence-led approach is the missing piece in protecting the natural world at the highest level. As ELI enters its next decade of work, I am personally dedicated to raising awareness regarding environmental crime.” -Scott Atkinson, Chair of ELI’s Board Our Work On Environmental Crime Convergence: Changing the Game. Since 2013, the ELI team has collected information onEnvironmental Crime Convergence. Through our field investigations and an evidence-based approach, for over ten years, our team has collected and analyzedfirst-hand information regarding how environmental and wildlife crime converge or overlap with other serious crimes, including human smuggling, money laundering, corruption, drug trafficking and even terrorism, in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia. We have shared this information withlaw enforcement and government authorities around the world throughConfidential Intelligence Briefs (CIBs)and analytic report to as an effective and innovative tool fill significant information gaps about environmental crime convergence and to activate justice. ELI’s work on crime convergence hasfacilitates opportunities for law enforcement and government authorities to engage in arrests,charging the top wildlife traffickers and environmental criminals for crimes that are more serious than wildlife crime. In 2022 ELI finally brought our ground-breaking work on Environmental Crime Convergence to the public. We published two groundbreaking reports to raise awareness among the public, governments, law enforcement authorities, and policymakers. 
Explaining Environmental and Organized Crime Convergence Through a Systematic Analysis of the Operational Dynamics of Transnational Criminal Groups ‘Operation Jaguar’ Summary Report: Researching Crime Convergence to better understand and combat jaguar trafficking WildLeaks: Empowering the Public to Fight Environmental Crime 
In 2014, ELI launchedWildLeaks, the world’s first whistleblower initiative dedicated to environmental/wildlife crime. Using Tor technology,WildLeaks provides a secure and anonymous platform for members of the public to share their knowledge safely and easily regarding environmental crimes, such as poaching, wildlife trafficking, illegal logging, and illegal/unregulated fishing. WildLeaks also allows the public to safelyshare information regarding other serious crimes, such as corruption, drug smuggling, and human trafficking, without fear of retaliation from these criminals. Since its launch,WildLeaks has beenone of the most innovative initiatives in fighting environmental crime, receiving hundreds of confidential submissions. These submissions have been shared through ELI’s confidential reports with law enforcement and governmental authorities, serving to address critical knowledge gaps, generate investigations, and assist in key arrests. ELI also shares relevant information with NGOs, stakeholders, and the public, to increase awareness regarding environmental/wildlife crime. Looking Forward 
Our 10-year anniversary is a momentous occasion for all of us on the ELI team. We enter the next decade committed to growing, learning and buildingupon our work as a global leader in the fight against wildlife and environmental crime, and to supporting the work of some of the most important law enforcement agencies in the world, that need also our help to fight back. We are immensely grateful for the support of individuals like yourself.Each of you matters and has played a role in our ability to make a difference. We depend upon your financial donations and assistance to continue our work. Ultimately, it takes courage to fight environmental crime, and it takes bravery to fund us. We are grateful for your support. Join us in celebrating our anniversary! Donate here. 
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