You're listening to a stage talk titled Tracking
the Traffickers. This week, Bellingcat researcher
Fuca Postma joined us on stage. Fuca is known
for finding things online that shouldn't be there,
from exposing flashcard apps that were leaking
highly confidential locations of nuclear weapons,
to highlighting clues that a woman claiming to
offer evacuation flights out of Iranian missile
flight paths to major newspapers may be completely
AI -generated. In recent years, he's turned his
talent to finding these digital trails to looking
into animal welfare. He's carried out investigations
into influencers showcasing lion cubs on their
YouTube and Instagram to profile selling endangered
species to customers on Facebook and TikTok.
In this talk, he speaks on how he carried out
these investigations and what methods you can
take to report on animal abuse. You can find
links to all the resources mentioned in the talk
in the podcast description. This talk was hosted
by me, Charlotte Ma, on Thursday, the 2nd of
April, 2026, in the Bellicat Discord server.
Welcome to a new stage talk. Today's conversation
dives into the hidden world of online wildlife
trafficking and how it's evolving in plain sight
on mainstream platforms. A recent investigation
by Usa Billingcat uncovered networks of traders
using coded language inside Facebook groups to
openly sell protected and endangered animals,
often to tens of thousands of members. Despite
platform policies banning animal sales, these
communities have persisted for years and evaded
detection until now. The reporting traces how
these networks operate, how sellers mask illegal
activity, and how multiple accounts lead back
to a single broker coordinating sales across
borders. To unpack how this works and what it
means for tech platform moderation, conservation
efforts, and digital investigations into environmental
harms, I'm joined by my colleague, Fuka Postma.
He's also the researcher behind this investigation.
Carried out, by the way, with the excellent environmental
investigations outlet, Monga Bay. Before we start,
and before I pass it over to Fuca, a short reminder
that you can place your questions in the chat,
accessible in the right -hand corner of your
screen. But please remember that this is being
audio recorded for the podcast. So if you want
to keep your Discord username private, please
mention that in your question. Okay. Fuca, I
will shut up and the stage is yours. Thank you
very much. So I'll start off by setting the scene
and our broader interest in investigating wildlife
issues online and why I think Bellingcat and
open source investigators can play a crucial
role in trying to prevent or stop this kind of
stuff happening. So if we think about wildlife
issues online, it's always broader than people
think. You have the trait, which we'll discuss
in a bit, but there's also all types of abuse
going on. Farming, poaching, people who collect
rare bats for taxidermy or gorilla skulls. People
who think specific animals have medicinal properties
when you consume them. Or there are communities
who think certain owls represent witchery and
so they should be exterminated or chased away
once you come across them. So it's a large scale
issue that you can approach from many angles.
But what the research shows is that most of this
place where animals get traded takes place on
Facebook. So that's where a lot of this stuff
can be found. Even with different platforms around,
even with knowing that there are local shops
or whatever, like every country has their own
specific sort of like commercial website, right?
Still Facebook is very much a large source for
wildlife issues, especially once you delve into
the illegal wildlife trade. And so you already
said it, there are measures that Facebook takes
to sort of combat this issue. But it's always
an evolving scene and illegal wildlife traders
know this. So for example, even years ago, I
came across posts which clearly showed cheetah
cubs. in the Middle East in a small basket. And
already back then people were wise enough to
never use the word cheetah and buy or sell in
the same post. The comments would ask, is it
for sale or are you selling it? And the seller
would say it's sold, it's sold, it's sold. And
no one would say the word cheetah specifically.
Now you can still often... Not often, but if
you're lucky, find people in groups who are not
smart enough to avoid doing this. But by and
large, if a wildlife trader is successful and
has built up a reputation online, you'll find
that they are very good at avoiding certain types
of language. And that makes it a bit more difficult
to detect. You'll also see that they use certain
emojis, for example, because you can't really
search Facebook with emojis. Or they will try
to edit the photo. So the animal on it is not
easily recognizable, I guess, to an algorithm,
but humans can still see what they mean. The
same goes for these groups that are the topic
of this latest investigation. A lot of these
groups were called animal adoption. If they mentioned
a species, they would mention a species that
is legal to trade in, but is very adjacent to
more illegal wildlife trade. So for example,
they would use group names that focus on sievats.
And, uh, they are, I mean, more rare than, than
your average animal, uh, more uncommon. Um, and
they draw a certain crowds, right? Um, and in
those groups, you would find more and more rare
and specific, uh, species that were not meant
to be, uh, sold at all. Um, and that, that language
that they use to avoid immediate detection is
something that reminds me of previous investigations
where animal traders, illegal wildlife traders
in the Middle East, they would just say they
have a private zoo or they would have an animal
rescue. And that's their reason why they show
off animals at the profile and why they hold
them. And then if you duck just a little bit
further, you can immediately see now they're
buying and selling these species. That being
said, you can still use keywords to find this
kind of posts, these groups. You just have to
go through a couple of steps and put yourself
in the context that they themselves live in.
So obviously a language barrier, you need to
switch to Bahasa Indonesian in this case, but
then also the dealers figure out their own sort
of colloquial language, type of lingo that takes
place once you deal with certain material long
enough. So a buffy fish owl, for example, becomes
just a buffy. Now, if I see something that's
just called a buffy or you search for a buffy,
you For those older amongst us, you might end
up with Buffy the vampire slayer. But in the
right context, you get a certain type of owl
that people were very interested in, right? So
these keywords, even though these sensors like...
You have the sensors, you have the traders rotating
around the sensors. If you take the effort to
figure out the keywords, you might still find
those traders and those groups. It just takes
a little bit more research ahead of finding material
that you're interested in. You can still do this
right now if you search, for example, on Telegram,
if you're interested in dog fighting, one of
these other wildlife issues, or at least animal
issues, if you just go to Telegram and you search
for dogs, you're not going to find much. You
can search for game dogs, and then you're getting
closer to the type of groups that you are interested
in. But if you specifically look for APBT, American
Pit Bull Terrier, You're going to find all of
these accounts and groups that are dedicated
often to dog fighting because the, the American
pit bull terrier is one of the favorites that
they use. They use that short harm, that acronym
for that dog. And that's sort of like commonly
known in that community. Um, so that's what I
mean, like you need to sort of, uh, get in there,
um, or at least do some research and find those
other ways. in which you can track these people.
So one interesting aspect to this research that
we did is finding out the admins of these groups.
So sometimes when you read about the amount of
Facebook posts that contain illegal advertisements
on wildlife, it always feels hopeless. Like the
numbers are in the thousands, tens of thousands.
And if you're in this group, you see like hundreds
of posts every week, right? And just the scale
is sort of overwhelming because it might just
mix in with legal trade. And none of us are an
expert on every species. So you might see like
a dozen adverts for others. And some others you
can trade in and some others you can't trade
in. Uh, but you have to sort of be able to determine
that, but good luck if you're not an author expert,
right? So, uh, for this research, uh, it was,
I guess for the first time that I properly made
use of AI as well. And I know this is, um, already,
uh, dangerous to go in because every time you
refer to AI, immediately people think, oh, hallucinations.
uh, you know, double check your work. And it's
true, you need, you need to double check your
work, but it can still speed up your work, even
accounting for the double checking. Um, so, um,
if, if I had such a large volume of posts, um,
and you start off with some animals that you
learn to recognize, like I now know what a buffy
owl looks like and sort of what otter is protected
and which ones, uh, aren't. But if you prepare
an environment, a project or a notebook or whatever
your LLM or your AI offers, where you can sort
of prepare the stage. You throw in documents
related to the specific laws of that country.
You tell it that you want the... You needed to
check the IUCN listing for the species. And then
quickly, sorry, provide feedback on whatever
photo or name of an animal you throw in there.
You are able to deal with a large volume of animals
much more faster. And you learn a lot this way
as well, especially if you, you know, do what
you need to do, which is double check whatever
the LLM is. providing you. So you're in this
group that is hiding under adopt an animal. You
see a large volume of posts and you're using
AI to sort of like quickly learn more and more
about, okay, which animals are we looking at?
Which ones should I pay extra attention to? And
then once in a while you'll probably find adverts
that contain animals that are protected or vulnerable
and endangered or both, both meaning endangered
and protected. Um, and that's where the digging
starts, right? Um, it already says something
about the group, obviously. Um, but you want
to start with the people who are actually, actually
sending those adverts into the group to begin
with. And more often than not, you'll end up
with a locked Facebook profile. Which sucks,
but it's not the end of the world. Because you
can search old Facebook profiles, or you can
search locked Facebook profiles for older posts,
sorry. If you don't know how to do this, if you
ever end up in a locked Facebook profile, there's
three dots on the right hand side and you can
do search. And you have to fill in a keyword.
And depending on if they've ever used that keyword,
you might get results. suddenly you might see
posts that they posted that you were not able
to see when you just visited their profile. And
the good thing about this is that if you visited
their, or if you came across their adverts, you
probably have some indication of the language
that they might be using to send out ads into
groups. So in this case, I came across several
locked Facebook profiles through advertisements.
And for example, one, I only had an advertisement
for Buffy Fish Owl. And so I just go to the profile,
profile's locked, it's empty, but I do this thing
where you open up the search button. Pro tip,
if the search button doesn't appear, you can
still make it appear through a bookmark. I'm
not going to explain this right now, but I'm
happy to in the Discord. But yeah, just so you
know. So you can search the looked Facebook profile,
right? I have the adverts. I search for Buffy
and suddenly I see where else this person has
placed this Buffy advert. You might also see
the posts that don't just contain Buffy, but
maybe their phone number or maybe a different
species that they've also been selling at a different
time. It does not matter in particular if the
advertisement is years old. Um, I mean, the animal
will be, will be gone probably. Uh, but for research,
if you, even if you have an advert that is really
old, I still see people comment on adverts that
are like two years old, um, just to make the
connection with the seller. And I mean, there's
all kinds of information you can gather from
this, right? Who are the people who are responding
to the adverts? Who are people who are liking
the adverts? What are they up to? So all the
posts are interesting, not just because you have
those connections, but also because they might
lead you to different groups, more information,
other keywords that that user has been using
in their adverts. And slowly but surely you can
unravel an identity behind the locked Facebook
profile. In this story, once I started doing
this, I noticed that there was a collection of
profiles that were using the same keywords, the
same like buffy fish owl. They will use WC, WildCod
or BC, which is bred in captivity. WildCod is
usually more worse and it's like the laws are
more stringent when it's wild caught. And yeah,
I started noticing that they posted the same
kind of stuff. And they also, many of them had
admin roles or moderator roles in several of
these groups that I kept running into. And here's
where it becomes a bit more typical Bellingcat
investigation, where you look at the photos and
you start to... understand I'm looking at the
same kind of interior. From the interior, eventually
I saw a poster in the background that led me
to a specific shop. I also started noticing that,
you know, as they hold the animal to photograph,
they photographed part of their wrist and they
had a nice mole on that wrist. And so even though
they were photographing different animals in
different positions, sometimes different interiors,
They all showed the same exact model on the same
wrist. And so I started thinking, oh, wait, are
all these different profiles, if we have different
admin roles and moderator roles in different
groups, they appear to come from one person and
the phone number also started to point to one
person. Yeah. And so with the geolocation, I
eventually figured out, okay, this is a store
that they're connected to. And in the story,
you see this pet shop. It's a very small pet
shop in Indonesia near Jakarta. And we decided
to partner up with Mongabay, which is a great
outlet, great environmental focused outlet that
decided to help us out. And they had someone
visit that store. Saw Javan Kugal, which is a
protected species there. And gave us more information
to work off. So it turns out that the person
that I came across from all these different profiles
is a broker who hangs out at that shop. And that
makes sense if you see the shop, it's relatively
small. But the way this usually works. uh, is
a broker is like dedicated to connecting people
who source these animals, who sell animals and
people who want to buy these animals. Um, and
they make sort of these essential nodes in, in
networks. Um, it's very rare for, for example,
someone who, um, works in, um, some remote area,
um, like a farmer or a, uh, let's say woodcutter.
They might come across a rare species like out
there in nature. It's rare for those people to
immediately go to Facebook and like start trying
to sell whatever they found. Usually it's they
know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy and
that guy knows the broker who has a large network
and is able to make the trade for you and gets
a portion of the profit. And so in this case,
I suspect they were helping out that pet shop
just connect to a wider audience. We didn't go
as far as trying to figure out where the pet
shop sourced their animals because like I said,
it might very well be that they just have some
guy on WhatsApp who came across this rare bird
in their backyard or on the farm or whatever.
The good thing about being able to identify one
of sort of these essential nodes in a network
is that Yeah, once you've identified the person
and you can demonstrate that they are selling
protected species themselves and facilitating
it for a very large portion of this wildlife
trade online, like the groups that they had an
admin or moderator role in together had like
70 ,000 people in them. And because we reach
out to Meta and we ask questions, Meta eventually
takes down these groups and those accounts. And
that matters. That matters a lot. Like I said,
these accounts, their history also matters, right?
You can't just make a new account and a new group.
I mean, they can, but it will never have the
same weight of groups that have been online for
five years or more. where they have demonstrated
that they are authentic sellers that can be trusted.
Where old adverts still demonstrate the types
of animals that they might be able to fetch for
you or have on offer. So I consider this a more
successful impact than just trying to take down
posts. And on top of that, It also I think is
somewhat inspiring to think that yes, there are
thousands of these posts and a lot of groups,
but apparently if you manage to find the right
person and identify them, you can take seven
of these groups, nine of these groups. I need
to check my own work now. I think it was nine
even. Yeah, some smaller groups, nine groups
now. Yeah, just by identifying one. crucial guy,
you take down a very large portion of this community
that is involved in illegal wildlife trade near
Jakarta. And, you know, as it's a Bellingcat
article, hopefully demonstrate to you, all of
you, how you can do the same, how you can search
these profiles, how you can make connections
and hopefully identify the people who are doing
this. Let's see, do I have any other thoughts
on this? We'll just open it up for questions.
What do you think Charlotte? It sounds good to
me. We already have quite a few coming through.
I will reshare the article link as well while
I'm here, just in case people want to look through.
Although I did put the image of the mole in the
chat as you were talking about it. In terms of
discovery, Saiba asks, are most of these Facebook
posts public or do you likely need to join them
to see the chats? And there's been discussion
in the chat about how you might be able to kind
of make your way into these spaces. Perhaps as
an addition to that, you could also talk about
kind of where we as researchers draw the line
in terms of infiltrating Facebook groups or...
private Facebook pages as you were talking about
earlier. So these are fairly large groups and
they might be set to private, but you can join
them usually very easily. Because I'm interested
in the topic, I just mass join whatever groups
even remotely suggest that they're interested.
And then once you do a search on Facebook, if
you're in those groups, you search those groups
as well, right? Um, so it makes it that, that
easier. Uh, that's, that's what my approach has
been to, um, yeah, search for these groups, especially
once they say adoption and they have like, uh,
tens of thousands of, of people in them. And
then, uh, I guess if you want to get more accurate
and find the specific groups, it's always worth
to One, check the groups that, like I said, these
dealers are in. So once you see an advert in
like a broad general group that interests you,
find the person, investigate them a little bit
and see if you can find your posts in different
groups. But also sometimes stuff gets reshared
from one group to another. And then that's a
useful way of, you know, finding out multiple
groups. So yeah, it's not... that difficult to
find these groups in my experience. Um, we do
draw the line at talking to people and, you know,
joining very specific, uh, private groups where
you need to engage in a discussion with the admin
in order to, uh, get into the group. Okay. Uh,
so that's just, uh, where we at Bellingcat draw
the line. I use sub puppets to, to join large
groups. Um, But I don't just step into a very
private group or talk to these people. Yeah.
Yeah. Really important. Cybert wrote in the chat,
all Bellingcat supporters are getting ready to
descend upon Facebook and nab a bunch of these
brokers. In regards to privacy, as we're talking
about it, before we move on to any other questions,
you mentioned that MongoBay as part of their
collaboration kind of went on the ground and
looked to see if they could find the location.
How did they control that situation? Did they
approach the individual? Where was their role
in this and can you explain a little bit further
how they protected themselves as well on the
ground? Yeah, so they do a more traditional style
of journalism where they just visited the store
as a customer, asked some questions, took some
photos. And then later on, for the right of reply,
they called the people as well. We found phone
numbers, obviously. We visited and said, we're
working on an article where journalists, what
do you have to say about our findings? So obviously
a bit further than we can go. Very interesting
form of journalism, but a very helpful one here
also in this story. Yeah, those underground jailers
can often give you a little bit more context
than you can find online. Somebody in the chat's
put, that's very good advice. Fuca safety is
paramount and exposure to some things is not
desired. And somebody else has put a little resource
for sock puppets accounts, if you're not familiar
with what they are. Obviously, be very, very
careful. If you are creating sockpocket accounts
to join places, make sure that what you're doing
is in the public interest and make sure that
you're being safe online using VPNs and all of
that stuff. There's loads of resources in hashtag
infosec in this server that will help you with
that and in tools and sites. We had a question
earlier about if you'd applied these techniques
to other nations other than Indonesia. What I
mentioned in your intro is that you've actually
been covering this for a little bit. Could you
talk a little bit about some of the other investigations
on similar communities that you found doing similar
activities? Yeah, sure. I've done this for Malaysia,
sorry, and for Dubai as well. And there's some
side projects that take place in different contexts
as well. So it's very replicable. The advice
applies to different regions as well. It's not
Indonesia specific. In all of these contexts,
they tried to avoid sensors in the same way.
In Malaysia, you found the trafficker on TikTok,
correct? And in Dubai was Instagram, right? So
these are across platforms as well that you'll
find in these. In Dubai, it was actually spotting
the animals in the background of influencer videos.
Is that correct? Yes. Yeah, that's true. You'll
see that if they are large enough, this will
end up a multi -platform investigation, but it's
not always. forward for the way we publish the
story. It's not always useful to take you through
every platform because it's usually very much
the same. So in this, in the Indonesia story,
I discussed Facebook, but they also have, for
example, a presence on TikTok. And with the Dubai
story, we focus very much on Instagram, but you
could also find posts on Facebook. I like Facebook
because it's... It usually provides you a bit
more information and it's a bit more easier to
research in my experience than TikTok or Instagram.
But yeah, it ends up being, even if the story
ends up being focusing on the line of inquiry
on one platform. Usually on the backside, you'll
find that we uncover multiple platforms and the
same behavior happening in different places.
And you mentioned that you were searching in
Indonesian for this particular investigation,
the recent one that you were just talking about.
Dars has asked, with Facebook being particularly
prominent in the Indo -Pacific, these groups
of thousands of members, do you find that the
buyers are prominently domestic or have you observed
transnational trade? A bit of both. So the scale
is large enough that you're getting inundated
with more domestic trades, it feels like. But
then I wasn't surprised when I saw some people
ask for international transfers or trades. They
will sometimes also openly advertise with saying,
no, we can ship this anywhere in the world. So
yeah, a lot of local trade, but not excluding
international trade. How far do you go when you're
trying to map out these networks? Like, do you
often try to, you mentioned you can see, you
know, who's commenting for a long period of time.
He's repeatedly asking for prices. Have you ever
taken that extra step and looked at the buyers,
not just the sellers? Or is that kind of taking
it a step too far in terms of being able to kind
of see impact from the investigation? Yeah, it
depends on, um, It's almost a case -by -case
scenario. If I get in the sense that the buyer
is not just a one -off, but somehow has their
own business going on, then it becomes a lot
more interesting, obviously. Let's see, I've
done some investigations that are still sort
of ongoing where the buyers also matter, but
I can't talk too much about that. Yeah, I can't
say anything else, but it's a case -by -case
scenario. Most of the times I leave the buyer,
I want to say by the wayside, it's yeah, not
the most interesting part of the investigation
because the bad side is the supply side in this
case, right? So yeah, this is not a very fulfilling
answer. I know. Uh, but for me, the, the Stellars
and figuring out part of the supply chain, uh,
is the most interesting aspect. You're keeping
us on tender hooks. I like it. Sumi said something
related to this, actually. They've just commented,
do these groups have overlap with normal trade
groups while doing business with captive exotic
animals? Or are they staying closed as possible?
What's their general tactic? Do they look for
outreach, for example? Are you seeing them outreaching
on other kind of... wildlife related groups or
is it all happening within these groups? They
got enough audience already looking for trade.
Yeah, I want to say that, and it really depends
on the species. There is a crossover where you
have dedicated communities that are sort of open
and for example, show themselves as hobbyists,
just discussing their favorite wildlife or favorite
species. And then you'll find that some people
are saying that they have one for sale, but people
should reach out to them privately. And I've
seen indications where I'll mention this case.
It was on MorphMarkets, which is a popular US
focused, I think, reptile and snakes sort of
great place online, marketplace online. In there
was an advert for a Simalia bouleni, which is,
it's a snake. If you see the snake, it's a beautiful
snake. It has sort of like a rainbow shimmer.
But it was sold in the United Kingdom and it
was sold as one that is labeled wild cult. So
we're talking about like, morph market is like
an official business, right? It's not some shady
group. dedicated space for all of these hobbyists.
So a wild god, Simalia Buleni, which according
to the description was sold in the UK. They said
it was captive for a number amount of years.
And if you know a bit about how this trade is
supposed to work, Simalia Buleni, that specific
snake, only can be found on Papua New Guinea.
I believe in a mountain range. It likes to live
and mate quite high above sea level. And in theory,
it can only be exported by two countries, Indonesia
and Papua New Guinea, due to its endemic sort
of like nature in those locations. And because
all of this trade is now regulated by CITES,
If someone tells me this snake is wild caught
and I got it nine years ago, I should be able
to go to CITES and see did any of these snakes
end up in the country that you say where you're
at from those places. And I couldn't find any
matching records, which means that either it
happened under the books without permits or the
seller is lying about it being wild caught, which
can also happen. But this is a rare snake, which
doesn't breed easily. It takes some effort to
do this kind of investigation. I should explain
to you, I'm happy to explain to you how you can
do this. It's not too difficult, but you do need
to go to CITES trade database, fill in the species
and the country and the years, and then see,
are there any matching permits? And there weren't
any. All of this to say, Definitely, and depending
on these specific, highly specific species, you'll
find that the hobbyist communities also do have
some negative influences there from people who
are trying to sell them. In those discussion
groups, I've also seen some general resistance
against regulating the trade. The argument that
hobbyists usually put forward is saying, no,
we take great care of these animals. We try to
breed them and in breeding them, we help stop
them from going extinct. Which, you know, if
I follow experts advice and they say, no, if
you want to stop these animals from going extinct,
especially in the wild, you just need to stop
these poachers from taking them. And these snakes
can go for like $10 ,000 a piece. which, uh,
you know, for someone living in these more remote
areas, there's an incredible, uh, amounts of
money. Um, so yeah, if the question is, are these,
these sort of like open legal spaces, uh, to
do sometimes interject with the illegal trade,
then yeah. I wonder if you could put the link
to that site that you mentioned in the chat,
because I'm sure people would love to explore
that. Just on overlap in terms of communities,
a comment earlier when you were talking about
the codes and the colloquial nicknames of species,
somebody put in the chat that most taxonomists
raise some colloquial nicknames of species too.
Although these nicknames are not intended for
search blending, we're just doing it too because
we are lazy. So sometimes there are innocent
reasons as to why these terms or these animals
are appearing in these spaces, but it's really
good to understand the overlap. We had questions
earlier talking about what to do if you come
across these pages and you're pretty sure that
what they're doing is illegal. You've been talking
about Indonesia, Malaysia, Dubai. If you don't
live in those countries, do you have jurisdiction
to report it? How does it work and are the laws
different in different countries for this kind
of activity? Definitely. So there are always
three laws that I try to keep in mind. There's
the local laws. There's whatever Facebook's rules
or TikTok rules or whatever say. And then once
you get a sense that it's international trade,
CITES also comes into play. So CITES is the regulatory
framework for any international trade for animals.
So if you come across something and you want
to do more, if you want to investigate, then
go through these steps. Facebook, I think in
general has a rule against selling or buying
animals, which is not really enforced. Then there's
like your local laws in the local context, which
is tricky because often what happens is that
template Dubai, they will have strict regulations,
but then they will say, unless you have a permit,
unless you have a permit. And then how can you
demonstrate that someone has or does not have
a permit, right? It's not something that they
might post on Facebook. So that's tricky. And
so then what I tried to focus on is the animal
that we're looking at in any way vulnerable or
endangered is the species in decline and is the
purpose that they are being sold for. the pet
trade, is that contributing? And for me, that's
what makes it interesting enough to go after.
Okay. Regardless of the local laws. And you'll
find that usually if the species is in decline,
it should be protected. For example, Indonesia
does have laws on this, it's just often a matter
of capacity for law enforcement. And yeah, if
you really want to make work of it, you can go
out there and start or take the link of that
post and send it to local wildlife organizations,
to authorities, flag it for meta. Or if you're
really into open source investigations, do what
I do and try to uncover identities and see how
far the rabbit hole goes. And then write up an
article and send it to us. And then hopefully
we can have a larger impact and take down a larger
network. I love that you suggested that. And
if you do want to pitch an investigation to us,
it's submissions at billingcat .com and you can
find details. How's the submit? on our website
under contact. Or, you know, you can just ping
Fuka in here in the environment channel, which
I shared earlier in the chat. Sumi says, thanks
for that answer. I wondered because I met few
regulated cases on open markets like public exchanges
with exotic animals. Some doesn't need to be
CITES, but also GMO related animals. I have seen
that. Note they should be strongly regulated
in Europe. The thing is some type of folks craving
for anything that's rare and it really supports
general will to offer this kind of stock. We
had a question earlier about CITES actually,
is there recourse available with the domain administrators
there? If it's a legitimate focusing marketplace,
should there be some form of accountability to
remove illegal and despicable content? Yes, there
could also be some form of accountability. That's
actually a good question, I don't have an answer
to that. Maybe a way forward if you notice something.
People are also saying public name and shame
can be a good tactic, but also noting that it
can quickly become hazardous to your health as
well. BJ Mack asked earlier, Is Foukesh searching
in non -Latin scripts and are the traders more
brazen in the languages that content checkers
are less familiar with? Yes. I am searching also
in non -Latin scripts and I do feel that the
posts that we come across, people who have taken
some steps to use very local colloquial language
or lingo, feel more brazen, more confident to
talk openly. So they do consider it a form of
privacy to retreat into this sort of non -standard
or difficult to track language. Do you think
there's things that moderate a platform? platforms,
social platforms could do more of. Do you think
their moderation systems, for example, the AI
moderation tools are capable of capturing this
coded language? Or do you think, do you think
there's anything more that they could be doing
than they're currently doing? Yes, easily. So
one of the issues I have with people going out
there and flagging and reporting stuff for Meta.
is that you're basically doing matters work,
right? You're becoming a content moderator for
them. And people do this out of a passion and
out of an interest to stop illegal wildlife trade.
But honestly, with how many billion they spend
on the metaverse and are now on AI. If I, as
a non -Bahasan Indonesian speaker can recognize
that a post is advertising an animal, not just,
you know, With the description, but people in
the comments, um, people repeatedly posting,
uh, this animal, people discussing price. Uh,
I can't help but think that, and, uh, uh, a lightweight
model, AI model should be able to catch this
and flag this. Um, yeah. So I am not letting
metal off here. without any blame. I think they
can do a lot better. There's your pull quote
from this episode. Thanks Sabine, so honest there.
And yeah, I think it's interesting, like how
prevalent this kind of trade is on these platforms.
In regards to that, do you have any idea how...
How big, how significant this online trafficking
is compared to more traditional trafficking routes
today? Have you spoken to any people in the conservation
in terms of how the volume of endangered protected
species being moved in this way, the impact online
trading can have on conservation efforts? Yeah,
so I mean, the illegal wildlife trade is one
of the biggest sort of prime financial flows
on the planet. And because it's also one of the
lowest priorities, it feels like sometimes you
can not easily post a large photo of, you know,
your bags of drugs or a stash of weapons. without
it drawing some interest. But animals, even rare
species, sure go ahead. And one of the reasons
is it's a capacity issue because you need to
know a lot about all kinds of species. So for
example, I think I mentioned this in the beginning,
but even ants can be trafficked, right? Or the
eggs of birds or whatever. uh, the paste made
out of tigers. Um, and it's, it's tricky because
once it, especially if an animal is turned into
a different product, like, like tiger paste or
tiger wine, um, determining that it actually
came from a tiger requires a lot more, uh, effort
than, you know, uh, detecting drugs or detecting,
uh, weapons. And the same goes for, you know,
if you see a photo of this kind of stuff, um,
So it's a very, very large illegal financial
flow that is taking place. It has a very large
online presence. And at the same time, the capacity
or sometimes maybe even the interest to completely
stop this is very low. So there's a lot of good
work to be done for open source investigators
in this field. It just takes more people having
a look at this kind of stuff. So if you have
a particular passion for a particular species,
or you want to develop one, maybe you have a
love for ants, please go out there and search
and see what's going on. That would be great.
There's your call to action right there. On that,
there's a question in, and by the way, we've
only got 10 minutes left, so we've only got time
for a few more questions. There was a question
just before you said that about, there's always
a lot of interest on wildlife trafficking of
cute animals. How about the non -cute ones? Would
there be less visual evidence about their illegal
trade? Do you find that to do the traffickers?
really prioritize cute looking animals in their
adverts in comparison to the not as cute animals.
Yeah, I think so. I mean, they definitely draw
more attention. And I think with that, the price
also goes up and so the interest in dealing in
the animal. So like I said, this Buleni snake,
I don't think a lot of people would have taken
an interest or the price would be as high if
it wasn't gorgeous to look at snake. So that
matters. You'll often see that these species
that are described as rare, it becomes sort of
like a self -fulfilling prophecy where hobbyists
call it rare. The price shoots up, poachers think,
oh, this is rare, I can sell it for a lot of
money. go after that animal, making it even more
rare. And yeah, we like to think about these
big animals like the elephants and the cheetahs
and we should rightfully be concerned. But these
smaller species, not smaller species, but the
ones that get less interest, we should give them
more love as well, because many of them are equally
at risk of going extinct. Yeah. No, that's true.
Yeah. Like you said. Protect the little guys.
Tristan in the comments, who is an old colleague
of ours, is putting a really cute ant picture
in the chat. Cute being the sarcastic word. Thanks
for that. Just to kind of wrap up, obviously
if there's a few other questions in and we might
be able to squeeze them in, but I wanted to ask
this. For many forms, for many people, animal
abuse and animal trade investigations can be
quite a triggering thing to work on. It's one
of those things that often gets listed when you're
talking to investigators about the things that
they're not comfortable working on. So how do
you stay sane when doing this type of investigation?
What would be your tips for people who are perhaps
thinking about, now you've spoken to us, thinking
about delving into this area, how do you keep
yourself from going crazy if you're an animal
lover yourself? Yeah. So, um, I do, I mean, luckily
at Bellacat we, do this in different areas and
like it's her daytime job. So we also get support.
Um, and I would recommend you if, if someone
now has a large passion or an interest to, to
take it very easy. Um, some things you can't
unsee, especially if you end up with like, um,
the places where animals get abused for fun,
uh, or animals are easily chopped up into pieces.
Um, It can be very, very triggering and you just
need to be aware of this before you enter the
space like this. So thank you for asking this
question. What drives me more is that it does
feel like a very sort of important undertaking.
So we see these species going in the, in the
clown, we see a species going extinct. And you
see the direct cause of this in Facebook groups.
So on the one hand, you have this sort of like
risk that you end up with these horrible images.
On the other side, you know what you're doing
it for. And it's a very important cause. So for
me, that helps me sort of like overcome this
kind of imagery. uh, or the stuff that I see,
knowing that it's for a good cause and then seeing
those, uh, groups taken down or the profile disappear
and, um, you know, uh, law enforcement visiting
homes or commenting all the people that we identify.
Um, yeah, it, it feels like I'm doing my part
and that helps, um, more practically. Think about
turning off audio is always a good idea. Grayscaling
your screen if you suspect you're going to see
something unpleasant also helps. And taking a
lot of good breaks and talking with people about
what you're doing. Yeah, we have great articles
also on trauma help for those who are dealing
with this kind of stuff or think they might encounter
this stuff. I highly recommend reading that as
well. Yeah, I'm sure one of our mods can helpfully
drop our usual article in the chat. Someone's
also just put, never watch anything in full screen
is also a great tip. We need to wrap up in a
second, but I also wanted to ask very quickly
because this is a subject that many people don't...
cover very often. Is there any particular organizations
that you like to share your work with once it's
published for impact? Are there any organizations
that like to kind of echo these kinds of investigations
that you might want to shout out for people to
look at maybe as a good resource or to also kind
of send their work to just to amplify it a little
bit further. So obviously Mongabay, I'm so glad
we're happy with it. I'm so happy and glad that
we're in touch with them. They do great work
on a lot of areas and because they're in so many
places, they can almost provide the local context,
which so often gets overlooked, but can be very
important for an investigation. The International
Fund for Animal Welfare, I'm a fan of those.
Oh, there's so many organizations. Yeah. the
Environmental Investigative Agency, EIA, Graphic.
They all do great work in this space. And if
you want to get a feel of where to get started
or just take an interest in this kind of work,
read up on them as well. Amazing tips. And if
you don't mind just writing them again in the
chat for anybody who is... here and maybe English
isn't their first language, that would be super
useful. Thank you so much, Fuka, for today. It's
been fascinating, not only learning about the
amazing work that you've done in this space,
but also kind of the tips and tricks as you go
along. You're so good at explaining investigation.
processes. So that was really great. I know that
Tristan earlier may have shared the bookmarklets
tip that you gave. So hopefully people have that
as well. But yes, if you want to... Stay in contact
on this subject. We mentioned earlier, if you
want to pitch to Bellingcat, you can via submissions
at bellingcat .com, or you can chat about this
subject in hashtag environment and wildlife in
this very Discord server. And I'll make sure
that the links to everything that we've talked
about are in the description of this podcast.
But for now, thank you so much, Fuca, for your
time. Have a beautiful weekend, people. Make
sure that you take a break after this very heavy
talk. And I will see you in two weeks' time for
another stage talk. All right, cool. Thank you,
everybody. Thank you for listening to the stage
talk. If you'd like to catch a stage talk live...
where you can ask the guest questions, join the
Bellingcat Discord server by visiting www .discord
.gg slash Bellingcat. The music you've heard
is titled Dawn by Newer Self and is courtesy
of Artlist.