[IND] The term “CITES crime” refers to crimes related to illegal trade in wild species of fauna and flora protected by the Washington Convention (1973). They are one of the manifestations of crime against the environment. A subgenre of criminology that researches in this area is the so-called ecocriminology/green criminology. The aim of the article is to discuss the legal framework of criminal liability for CITES offences and criminological analysis of this social pathology. The previous achievements of ecocriminology are also presented and the relations between CITES crimes and other criminological categories of crime are indicated. In the legal part, the author discusses the relevant provisions of international law, European Union law and Polish criminal law  with particular emphasis on articles 128, 128a and 129 of the Law on Conservation of Nature. In the criminological part, the author diagnoses the causes of these phenomena (aetiololgy), characterizes the symptomatic forms of pathologies occurring in this area (phenomenology), and proposes methods to prevent and combat these undesirable phenomena (counteraction). Criminal statistics data on the phenomenon were also presented. The conclusions indcate that CITES crime is a dynamically developing branch of crime against the environment. It is sometimes wrongly identified with the so-called victimless crime and at the same time is characterized by a high dark figure of crimes. It can take the form of both criminal and economic crime. It has close links to organized crime and cybercrime.