Skins in markets, fangs turned into jewelry, and bones processed into paste: the illegal trade in jaguars persists in Latin America. An investigation spanning seven countries points to a primarily local, small-scale business, with evidence of international trafficking in Peru and Suriname.
Between 2023 and 2025, the Wildlife Justice Commission (WJC) investigated the trade of these big cats in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Panama, Peru, and Suriname. Its findings—shared with OCCRP—describe a market that often relies on sporadic sales opportunities, though the investigation also identified a network trafficking multiple species.
The latest WJC report "The Illegal Jaguar Trade in Latin America: An Updated Picture," published Thursday, found that a significant portion of the demand stems from local buyers, including members of Asian communities residing in the region. These results add nuance to alarms raised in the early 2010s regarding a new international market for jaguar parts targeting China, while not ruling out the continued existence of those connections.
Wildlife Justice Commission Executive Director Olivia Swaak-Goldman told OCCRP that the investigation identified two main types of trade: a local market for handicrafts and jaguar parts, observed in Colombia and Bolivia, and a higher-priced market linked to international demand, including for jaguar bone paste, observed in Suriname.
There, operatives identified suppliers of jaguar bone paste and retailers selling jewelry made from jaguar fangs in the capital, Paramaribo.
Swaak-Goldman said Suriname remained a high-risk country because of its proximity to large jaguar populations and porous borders that facilitate smuggling with neighboring countries, including Brazil and Guyana. She also pointed to demand from certain foreign nationals and the difficulties local authorities face in detecting international trafficking networks.
“Even so, the trade we observed was relatively low-volume and discreet. What made Suriname particularly important was the evidence of links between local wildlife products and international demand.”
The founder of Probios—an environmental organization based in Paramaribo—Erlan Sleur, also described the production of jaguar bone paste. “They make a black paste from it that is sold at an exorbitant price in China,” Sleur confirmed to OCCRP.
Sleur has raised awareness regarding the illegal hunting of jaguars in Suriname’s forested interior—animals targeted for years for use in Asian medicine and luxury goods. When OCCRP visited Sleur in Paramaribo in 2022, he displayed a cage he planned to use to capture jaguars that had accidentally wandered into agricultural fields, hoping to save them from poachers. “Those jaguars—those animals are simply shot,” he said.
According to the WJC report, transactions appeared infrequent, were carried out on demand, and provided supplementary income for the sellers. Records compiled by the organization included the seizure of at least 29 fangs and 16 kilograms of jaguar bone paste in Suriname between 2019 and 2025. At least four suspects were arrested, with two receiving prison sentences.
In Peru, the WJC identified a network of Peruvian citizens and individuals of Chinese origin operating between Lima and Iquitos. Its members offered jaguar parts and trafficked in other wildlife and marine species.
In Bolivia, investigators found vendors selling small quantities of skins, paws, claws, fangs, and handicrafts in La Paz, Santa Cruz, and Trinidad. “Temporary Chinese migrants working as independent contractors on large infrastructure projects are present in some sectors of the illegal trade in Bolivia. Specifically in Trinidad, some local traders stated that there were now fewer buyers of jaguar products, and [noted] that prices had dropped since the completion of a major road construction project, as foreign workers had moved to projects underway in other areas,” the report details.
The WJC found indications that law enforcement pressure had pushed some traders to operate more covertly or abandon the business entirely. However, it also noted gaps in information regarding subsequent judicial proceedings, the demand for live animals, and the ultimate destination of the products in Asia.
Meanwhile, a supplementary review of seizures between 2019 and 2025 revealed a dynamic that field investigations had barely captured: live jaguars were the most frequently seized category, accounting for 38 percent of the records. The majority of these seizures took place in Mexico.
Swaak-Goldman described Mexico as both a source and a destination market for the illegal pet trade in jaguars. She noted that jaguars are harder to breed in captivity than other big cats, such as tigers, and that their rarity makes them prestige animals in that market.
“So we know there is a signal in the seizure data, but we still need to understand how this market operates and what is driving the demand.”
For Swaak-Goldman, the findings offer grounds for cautious optimism.
“The report is not a reason for complacency, but it does provide an encouraging lesson: sustained, targeted enforcement can change the behaviour of traffickers and make an illegal market harder and less profitable to operate.”
