Five Amazon nations report 839 arrests, major timber and mineral seizures, and thousands of animals recovered in Green Shield 2026.
BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA.— Authorities from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru arrested 839 people during a coordinated campaign against environmental crime across the Amazon Basin, dramatically expanding a regional enforcement effort aimed at illegal mining, logging, wildlife trafficking, fuel smuggling and land grabbing. More than 3,600 officers took part in Operation Green Shield 2026 between July 15 and July 31, according to figures released by officials.
The multinational operation produced 1,045 field actions and seizures that authorities valued collectively at more than $280 million. Officials reported confiscating more than 280,000 cubic meters of illegally harvested timber and about 195 metric tons of minerals, while more than 3,000 live animals were rescued and at least 430 dead animals linked to wildlife trafficking were recovered.
The scale represents a sharp increase from the first Green Shield campaign in 2025, when Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru deployed more than 1,500 officers, carried out more than 350 operations and made 94 arrests. Bolivia joined the coordinated campaign this year, widening the enforcement network to five Amazon countries.
Green Shield 2026 targets interconnected Amazon crime networks
The July campaign targeted several illegal economies rather than treating environmental offenses as isolated crimes. Investigators have found that illegal mining, timber extraction, wildlife trafficking, fuel smuggling and unlawful occupation of land can overlap through common transportation routes, financial networks and criminal organizations operating across national borders.
That cross-border dimension is central to the strategy. Criminal groups can move commodities, equipment and people between neighboring jurisdictions, complicating enforcement efforts confined to individual countries.
Green Shield 2026 was coordinated from Bogotá through the International Initiative of Law Enforcement for Climate, known as I2LEC. The initiative is backed by the United Arab Emirates and was launched in partnership with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in 2023 to strengthen international law-enforcement cooperation against environmental offenses.
Colombia's participation extended beyond the Amazon itself. During the international campaign, Colombian police documented environmental enforcement operations elsewhere in the country, including the preventive recovery of 22 wild animals in Montería and an arrest in Neiva over alleged illegal mineral extraction.
Timber, minerals and wildlife drive the scale of seizures
The amount of timber reported seized — more than 280,000 cubic meters — was among the operation's largest physical recoveries. Authorities also reported approximately 195 metric tons of minerals associated with illegal extraction and equipment used in mining activities.
Wildlife trafficking was another major enforcement target. More than 3,000 live animals were rescued, while authorities recovered at least 430 dead specimens, including birds, reptiles and fish, according to the operational figures reported after the campaign.
The figures underline the commercial scale of environmental offenses in the Amazon. Illegal extraction is not limited to damage at individual mining or logging sites: commodities such as gold and timber can enter broader supply and trafficking networks, while wildlife can be transported through routes crossing several jurisdictions.
Previous international enforcement actions illustrate the problem. In October 2025, INTERPOL said a separate operation involving nine countries in the Americas resulted in 225 arrests and more than 400 recorded environmental offenses. The agency has also supported operations against illegal gold mining in the Brazilian Amazon, including a 2025 action that disabled 277 dredges on the Madeira River.
Enforcement expands sharply from the 2025 operation
Green Shield's year-on-year expansion is significant.
The 2025 campaign ran from June 23 to July 6 and involved Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Authorities reported 94 arrests, more than 350 coordinated field operations and seizures valued above $64 million. Among the recovered materials were more than 310 tons of raw minerals, approximately 3,800 cubic meters of timber and 39,000 gallons of smuggled fuel.
That operation also recovered more than 2,100 live animals and thousands of dead wildlife specimens, and enforcement teams worked in remote locations that included Indigenous territories.
By comparison, the 2026 operation mobilized more than twice as many officers and produced nearly nine times as many reported arrests. Bolivia's participation also extended the geographic reach of the multinational framework.
The comparison does not necessarily indicate an equivalent increase in environmental crime itself. Operational scope, participating jurisdictions, enforcement priorities and intelligence targets changed between the two campaigns, making the figures primarily a measure of enforcement activity rather than a direct year-to-year crime rate.
Why cross-border policing matters in the Amazon
The Amazon Basin extends across multiple national jurisdictions, while rivers, forests and remote border regions provide routes that can be exploited by criminal networks.
That geography creates an enforcement challenge: disrupting an illegal mining site or timber operation in one jurisdiction may not dismantle the financing, transportation or commercial networks supporting it elsewhere.
International coordination is therefore increasingly focused on intelligence sharing and the structures behind environmental offenses rather than only individual extraction sites.
INTERPOL made a similar point after a 2025 Brazilian anti-mining operation, saying intelligence gathered during enforcement could help authorities identify the financial and logistical networks supporting illegal gold extraction.
For Green Shield, Bogotá again served as a coordination center. During the 2025 campaign, participating countries used real-time information sharing and satellite-based geolocation tools to coordinate operations across borders.
What happens after Green Shield 2026
The 839 arrests represent an enforcement result, not final judicial determinations of guilt. Cases arising from the operation will proceed according to the laws and judicial systems of the participating countries.
The broader test will be whether intelligence gathered during the raids leads authorities beyond individual suspects and extraction sites to the financial, logistical and commercial structures supporting illegal environmental markets.
The comparison with 2025 suggests that participating governments are institutionalizing multinational environmental enforcement rather than treating Green Shield as a one-off campaign. With Bolivia joining Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru in 2026, the initiative now covers a larger part of the Amazon's interconnected border regions.
Whether the operation produces lasting reductions in illegal mining, logging and wildlife trafficking will depend on investigations, prosecutions and continued cooperation after the field deployments have ended.
Editorial Supervision: Eleanor Whitfield, Editor-in-Chief | CRN Times
More from Crime
View all in this section- Loading related stories…