The Market Monitoring and Friction Unit (MMFU) is dedicated to monitoring online marketing of endangered wildlife species and working towards innovative, effective strategies for disrupting wildlife trafficking.

Websites on the open web – sites that people can access and use every day – host some of the biggest online markets for endangered species, and encrypted communication channels for illegal traders. This problem arises from huge gaps in the global response to cybercrime, inadequacies in the global response to wildlife crime, and the way the two problems collide.

We develop machine-learning and OSINT methodologies, conduct online disruption activities, produce policy guidance and advocate for better cyber responses to wildlife crime.

This work began in 2018 with the ‘Digital Dangers’ project, which laid down the evidence base and technology pilot for this work.