Organised Chaos: The illicit overland timber trade between Myanmar and China

Based on extensive undercover investigations into the trade in China and Myanmar, this report exposes the key actors and systemic corruption which drive and facilitate a huge trade in stolen timber.

In Myanmar’s Kachin State, shady Chinese businesses pay in gold bars for the rights to log entire mountains while official corruption allows the timber to pass through various checkpoints.

Kachin and Yunnan Province in China are at the heart of trade but stolen timber, mostly high value species of rosewood and teak, is increasingly being sourced from deeper within Myanmar to feed factories in south and east China.

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