The Nakai plateau in Laos following illegal logging. (From International Rivers/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) When you think of organized crime, you probably picture Tony Soprano or Don Corleone and their nefarious waste management and drug trade activities. In the tropics, criminal organizations are resorting to bribery, forgery, and laundering—all to get their hands on timber. The crime rings are illegally harvesting wood in startling quantities, a new report finds. The report, put out by the United Nations Environment Programme and Interpol, estimates that 15 to 30 percent of wood on the world market is harvested illegally. The proportion could be as high as 90 percent in sensitive tropical regions such as the Amazon, Central Africa, and Southeast Asia. In the mid-2000s, illegal harvesting appeared to be falling in some regions following government crackdowns. But the report concludes that the decline may have been an illusion. “In the last five years, illegal logging has...