Background Illegal trade in wildlife and wildlife parts is an escalating driver of biodiversity loss. Unprecedented biological or commercial extinction of many life forms is now a critical reality throughout the world, jeopardizing the very foundations of biodiversity, including the future well-being of humans and requiring unprecedented political will, social sacrifice and law enforcement action to stem further losses. Progressively, through the advent of the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 1976, together with a host of national legislative and regulatory instruments and mechanisms, the global community has moved to address the threat to thousands of species of wildlife poised by unfettered trade. Although the value of illegal trade remains