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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Conserv. Sci.
Sec. Conservation Social Sciences
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcosc.2025.1488500
This article is part of the Research Topic Advancing the Science of Environmental Justice in the International Wildlife Trade View all 4 articles

Policing wildlife trafficking in northeastern Mexico. The case of Tamaulipas in 2023-2024

Provisionally accepted
José Luis Carpio-Domínguez José Luis Carpio-Domínguez 1*José Juan Cervantes-Niño José Juan Cervantes-Niño 2Jesús Ignacio Castro-Salazar Jesús Ignacio Castro-Salazar 3Violeta Mendezcarlo-Silva Violeta Mendezcarlo-Silva 4
  • 1 Criminology Department, Facultad de Derecho Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, Mexico
  • 2 Sustainable Development, Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales (IINSO), Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Nuevo León, Mexico
  • 3 TecNM/Instituto Tecnológico Superior de Abasolo, Guanajuato, Mexico
  • 4 Facultad de Derecho Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, Mexico

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Illegal wildlife trade is an environmental, economic, and social problem that threatens global public health and the security of countries. It is one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss on a global scale. Mexico is a source and transit nation for trafficked wildlife, so the timely detection by Mexico's governmental institutions is of fundamental importance for combating wildlife trafficking. The present study aims to analyze the factors that facilitate or constrain the police actions taken as first responders to wildlife trafficking in the state of Tamaulipas during the period 2023-2024. Through interviews with police officers, we determined that the prioritization of crimes related to public security has limited police attention to other forms of crime, such as wildlife trafficking. as the outcome is that wildlife trafficking is a largely uninvestigated, unquantified, and unaddressed crime. Further, most police officers are unaware that environmental crimes fall under their jurisdiction, which limits law enforcement and environmental justice in the state.

    Keywords: Wildlife trafficking, policing, environmental crime, Police, green criminology

    Received: 30 Aug 2024; Accepted: 02 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Carpio-Domínguez, Cervantes-Niño, Castro-Salazar and Mendezcarlo-Silva. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: José Luis Carpio-Domínguez, Criminology Department, Facultad de Derecho Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, Mexico

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.