Illegal poaching, logging and mining worth up to $258 billion: report

Illegal logging, mining, poaching and other environmentally destructive trade earned criminal gangs up to $258 billion last year, the United Nations said in a report published on Saturday. The scale of crimes ranging from illegal gold mining by drug cartels in Columbia to pillaging forests by rebels in Democratic Republic of Congo is expanding two to three times faster than the global economy, the study by the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) and Interpol found.