Ivory sellers in Europe are using the same code words in different languages to covertly advertise items for sale, potentially making it easier for law enforcement agencies to uncover such activities by reducing the number of phrases they have to track.<\/p>\n
DICE alumna Sara Alfino and Dr\u00a0David Roberts<\/a>\u00a0examined\u00a019 different code words and phrases\u00a0that have been identified as representing ivory products\u00a0on sale across four of eBay\u2019s European websites: the UK, Italy, France and Spain. They found that despite eBay\u2019s ban on ivory sales, there were 183 ivory items on sale by 113 sellers during their research window\u00a0between 18 January and 5 February 2017.<\/p>\n Not only did these sales violate eBay\u2019s trading conditions but some broke regulations under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and EU\u00a0regulations regarding the sale of \u2018unworked\u2019 ivory. Despite the use of codes to hide sales and the problems this could pose law enforcement agencies working in different languages, the researchers found that the majority of items on offer \u2013 around 80% \u2013\u00a0were grouped around six code words across the four eBay sites monitored.<\/p>\n This suggests the sales of ivory items online between traders is standardising around set code words, even when using different languages,\u00a0as globalisation and market forces affect their business like any other. This could help narrow the scope within which law enforcement agencies have to search for the sale of ivory items and allow machine-learning tools to be focused on key terms too,\u00a0helping improve identification of illegal sales.<\/p>\n However, the researchers say further work will be required to monitor sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Craigslist to see what terms are used. These sites havedifferent ways in which items are presented for sale\u00a0and therefore it is not known to what extent these code words are not only shared between languages, but also across the online sales platforms. Nonetheless, if a \u2018digital fingerprint\u2019 could be identified\u00a0for the sale of ivory items\u00a0or\u00a0other wildlife trade items that spanned platforms, languages and countries, the global monitoring of wildlife trade could potentially be made easier.<\/p>\n Dr Roberts said, “It is clear that identifying illegal online trade in ivory is a challenge for law enforcement agencies. However, the research shows that there are ways in which they can take advantage of market conditions that\u00a0are forcing traders to standardise on code words\u00a0to try and find buyers for their goods.”<\/p>\n