The Amazon rain forest covers almost two-thirds of Peru and the country’s Forestry Inspection Service estimates nearly one million cubic meters, or more than 35 million cubic feet, of illegal wood were cut and exported in the last five years.

That’s $374 million worth of tropical hardwoods exported to the U.S., Europe and China. CCTV America’s Dan Collyns reports.

In Peru’s Amazon, timber is big business. By the time it becomes wood flooring in Europe or a bedroom cabinet in the United States, there’s little trace of where it came from.

Loggers are only permitted to cut down certain trees within a certain area, but most can get the paperwork needed to make illegal logging appear legal.

Trees logged illegally outside the concession areas are often from national parks or indigenous reserves and are laundered for export.

Tracing the origin of that timber is difficult. Loreto, Peru’s largest Amazon region, counts on a dozen forestry inspectors to check that those who are given logging concessions stick to the law.

“The quantity of illegal wood can’t be calculated,” explained forest inspector William Arellano. “It arrives with the paperwork but we know that mafias sell the documents about the origin and volume of timber. That’s why it’s so important that we verify it on ground.”

During a major sting operation between March 2014-May 2014, Peruvian custom officials, with the help of the world customs organization and INTERPOL, seized enough illegal wood to fill six olympic-sized swimming pools.

In 2012, the World Bank estimated 80 percent of Peru’s timber exports were made up of illegally-cut wood.

For more on the business behind illegal logging, CCTV America interviewed Kate Horner, director of forest campaigns at the Environmental Investigation Agency.