Combating Wildlife Trafficking: Opportunities Exist to Improve the Use of Financial Rewards (GAO-18-279)

GAO-18-279, Combating Wildlife Trafficking: Opportunities Exist to Improve the Use of Financial Rewards (Apr 2018, 55 pp.): highlights; background (UNEP $7-23 billion illegal wildlife trade; FWS and NOAA law enforcement budgets, agents and investigations, seizure shares by country - out of scope, not about rewards); reward funding (FWS Law Enforcement Reward Account about $7 million; Special Funds appropriation up to $400,000 a year since FY1988; NOAA Fisheries Enforcement Asset Forfeiture Fund about $18 million); pros and cons of rewards; other federal reward programmes (CBP, State Department offer of up to $1 million on the Xaysavang Network - not paid; SEC; IRS; APPS); Table 1 and Appendix II Tables 3-5 laws authorising rewards and their limits; Table 2 rewards by agency and year FY2007-2017; case text boxes; reward policies; public communication (Figure 1 website checklist, Figure 2 poster for a $1,000 NOAA reward in Guam 2017); stakeholder views (counts of interviewees - methodology); SEC tips led to more than $975 million in sanctions FY2011-FY2017; recommendations; Appendix I methodology (rewards for non-trafficking activities excluded: FWS 25 / $50,500, NOAA 3 / $2,500); Appendix III Table 6 the 25 reward cases; agency comment letters (scanned, no figures checked beyond text). Already in the data: total 27 rewards and $205,500. Added: Table 2 (all cells; lowest/highest only where rewards were paid), agency totals, non-trafficking rewards, fund balances and appropriation, SEC sanctions figure, 8 rules, 25 cases (Table 6), 1 event. Checks: Table 2 years add up to agency totals and to 27 / $205,500; Table 6 rewards add up to 25 FWS rewards (one row is three rewards) and 2 NOAA. The $1,000 Guam poster offer (an advertised offer, not a payment) and the State Department offer are not recorded as rows.