TNRC Event Lessons from research: Using trade data to expose illicit financial flows and corruption in natural resource commodities, and broader applications

Virtual Panel:
Lessons from research: Using trade data to expose illicit financial flows and corruption in natural resource commodities, and broader applications

Tuesday
May 18, 2021

Time
9:00am - 10:30am Lima, Peru
10:00am - 11:30am Washington, DC
3:00pm - 4:30pm Cambridge, UK
5:00pm - 6:30pm Nairobi, Kenya
9:00pm - 10:30pm Bangkok, Thailand

Where
Remote Only

Watch the Recording

© WWF-Peru / Enrique Castro-mendivil

About the event

Corruption is a significant facilitator behind illegal logging, timber laundering, and associated international trade, undermining efforts to conserve and sustainably use forest resources. Under the Targeting Natural Resource Corruption project, researchers are developing new evidence on factors that can affect the success and failure of anti-corruption interventions in the biodiversity and natural resource management space. Join us for a presentation of new research findings from an examination of trade data on timber from Peru, and discussion of the implications and potential applications of this and similar research. This event will share insights on how trade data is being used to “follow the money” and find discrepancies that indicate possible illicit financial flows and associated corruption.

About the speakers

Headshot of Camila Gianella


Camila Gianella, Researcher, CMI
Camila Gianella received a PhD in Psychology from the University of Bergen. She holds a Msc from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and a degree on psychology from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, where she is currently the Executive Director of the Centre for Social Sciences Research CISEPA and assistant professor at the faculty of psychology. She is also a researcher at the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) and global fellow at the Centre on Law and Social Transformation, Bergen, Norway where she is has been part of projects, hereby; Targeting Natural resources Corruption, Elevating water rights to human rights: Has it strengthened marginalized peoples’ claim for water?, Abortion Rights lawfare in Latin America, Operationalizing a Rights-Based Approach to Health Service Delivery, Political determinants of sexual and reproductive health: Criminalisation health impacts and game changers and Litigating the Right to Health.

Headshot of Channing Mavrellis

Channing Mavrellis, Illicit Trade Director, Global Financial Integrity
Channing Mavrellis is the director of Global Financial Integrity’s program on illicit trade, focusing on the intersection of illicit financial flows, transnational crime, and international trade. Ms. Mavrellis has over nine years of experience working on issues related to anti-money laundering and countering terrorism financing (AML/CFT) and six years of conducting data-driven analysis of illicit trade and trade-related IFFs. Her March 2017 report, Transnational Crime and the Developing World, explores 11 different criminal markets: their value, dynamics, impacts on developing countries, and emerging trends. Most recently, she authored a report – Out of the Woods – that examines trade misinvoicing of timber exports from Colombia. She has a Master of Arts in International Affairs from American University’s School of International Service, where she pursued coursework on transnational organized crime and terrorism. Prior to joining GFI, Ms. Mavrellis worked in banking, and has taught in South Korea and Morocco. Ms. Mavrellis has a Graduate Certificate in French Translation from American University and received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Wisconsin.
Recommended reading: Out of the Woods: Trade Misinvoicing and Exports of Tropical Timber from Colombia

Headshot of Camilo Pardo

Dr. Camilo Pardo, Researcher, Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center, GMU
Camilo is an international development scholar focusing on the political economy of development, corruption, political and criminal violence, and Latin America. He has nearly two decades of experience working on natural resource management, human rights issues, and post-conflict reconstruction in the Latin American region for national governments, civil society, academia, and international organizations. He received his PhD in Public Policy from George Mason University and a Master’s degree in Democracy and Democratization from the University College London.
New paper: The International Links of Peruvian Illegal Timber: A Trade Discrepancy Analysis

Headshot of Julia M. Urrunaga

Julia M. Urrunaga, Peru Director, Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) (Moderator)
Julia Urrunaga is the Peru Director for the Environmental Investigation Agency, where she was the lead author of three multiyear investigative reports: “Moment of Truth” (2018) and “The Laundering Machine” (2012) about illegal logging in Peru and its exports to international markets – including the US, the EU and China – and “Deforestation by Definition” (2015) focused on the illegal deforestation of Peruvian Amazon natural forests to be replaced by monoculture large scale agribusinesses, mostly palm oil plantations. She was also the Peru team leader for the production of the documentary Antamiki (2018) that follows a group of international and Peruvian musicians to the Peruvian Amazon to learn from indigenous community leaders how illegal logging destroys their forests and violates their human rights, even assassinating their family members. These groundbreaking reports and documentaries have provided evidence for other local and indigenous organizations to support their claims for justice, and have been the basis for ongoing official investigations in Peru and abroad. Before EIA, Julia worked for 14 years as an investigative journalist, focusing on corruption issues. She received several national and international journalism awards, including from the Inter American Press Association and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ Fundación para el Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano.

Image attribution: © naturepl.com / Jen Guyton / WWF; © Brian J. Skerry / National Geographic Stock / WWF; © Georgina Goodwin / Shoot The Earth / WWF-UK; © Hkun Lat / WWF-Aus