Tackling Cyber Crime related to Illegal Wildlife Trade through Indonesia’s Cyber Patrol Team

Snapshot Solution

by CIWT Indonesia Project, Directorate General of Law Enforcement on Environment and Forestry, Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry

The Cyber Patrol Team of MoEF analyzing potential online IWT cases

CIWT Indonesia Project

The increasing use of internet has affected the pattern of Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT), where online transactions have been sharply rising.This poses challenges for law enforcement officers to accurately target the perpetrators. Considering this trend, the project supported the government to establish and operationalize a Cyber Patrol Team. Comprising 12 young and energetic Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF)’s staff, supported by a cyber wildlife surveillance expert, equipped with the skills and sufficient infrastructure, the team continuously monitor, analyse and report any indication of IWT online transaction.The Cyber Patrol Team's work, through timely identification, detection, and profiling of illegal social media accounts used for IWT activities, has helped law enforcement officers to better target the perpetrators of IWT, which otherwise would be difficult to locate efficiently. There is also enhanced collaboration between MoEF with the Indonesian National Police.

Last update: 23 Jan 2023

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Context

Challenges addressed

Loss of Biodiversity

Poaching

Lack of technical capacity

Scale of implementation

National

Ecosystems

Tropical evergreen forest

Theme

Poaching and environmental crime

Local actors

Location

Indonesia

Southeast Asia

Impacts

For the law enforcement officers, the work of the Cyber Patrol Team provides them with information-based decisions making and strategic planning for arrest operations, which otherwise would be very challenging given the high number and geographically wide distribution of IWT online transactions. In 2021, the Cyber Patrol Team monitored 2,972 social media and e-commerce posts related to IWT content, as compared to 363 similar posts monitored in the previous year without the Cyber Patrol team in place. By collaborating with the Ministry for Communication and Information, the team managed to delete 209 online trading accounts and remove 2,355 trading contents related to IWT. The work of the cyber patrol team has also benefited the community, as tackling online IWT cases efficiently contributes to better handling of human-wildlife interactions, which in turn reduces risks of zoonotic disease infections. For the ecosystems, through more efficient and strengthened law enforcement actions, indirectly, the work of the Cyber Patrol Team has helped to keep wildlife stay in the wild and preserve balanced ecosystems.