Since 2014, Namibia has seen a surge in wildlife poaching as a result of increasing international demand and depleting wildlife populations in other areas of the world. This has led to the loss of high-value species (such as elephants, rhinos, and pangolins) and concern about ecosystem impacts and associated economic losses. For instance, Namibia has become a key country for illegally sourced rhino horn, with a total of 416 rhino poached between 2013 and 2019, compared to only 13 rhinos poached between 2005 and 2013 (MEFT; 2020b, Milliken, 2014). The Namibian Financial Intelligence Center estimated that the foregone revenue in Namibia (or revenue circulated in illegal markets rather than legal ones) from trade in illegal markets for elephant tusks was about N$690,151 (NAD in 2013) and about N$141,506 (NAD in 2012) for rhino horn. The biggest costs from these activities, however, are the losses in tourism revenue, trophy hunting, limited live sales, and many other impacts that translate into further losses in tax revenue, loss of wildlife populations, and an increase in the problems posed by an underground economy, including corruption and crime. These costs are still ill-understood. As a response to this surge in wildlife crime, a diverse range of public and private actors have ramped up their efforts to curb illegal wildlife trade (IWT) nationally and across borders. Among other activities, the Namibian government established a multi-agency task force, the Blue Rhino Task Team, to combat illegal wildlife crime and international aid and local funding has been increasingly funneled towards these efforts. Private game reserves have also invested considerable resources to this end as well as community conservancies. These efforts have been relatively successful, slowing down the rate of poaching of rhinos and elephants, and increasing the number of arrests for activities related to these types of crimes. However, these investments are being made with little information on the costs of IWT and the benefits being generated by curbing it. This type of economic information is important to justify the investments being made and ensure that the benefits generated are greater than the costs and that economically viable solutions are being implemented. This study investigates the economic implications of investing in curbing IWT through a cost benefit analysis (CBA) of current investments in Namibia and compares the results against an alternative scenario where no investments are being made in curbing IWT as well as to a scenario where more investments are being made in further curbing it. The CBA monetizes costs and benefits from IWT curbing initiatives and sets them up to be consistently compared across time, in order to inform and guide investment decisions. The CBA focused on three key actors leading current investments in curbing IWT in Namibia: 1) the national government – including through public international aid, 2) communities living on communal land, and 3) private landholders. Nationwide impacts to the tourism industry at large are also considered. Two key species, rhinos and elephants, are used as proxies for the suite of costs and benefits associated with curbing IWT. Thus, the main functional unit of analysis is population size for rhinos and elephants; therefore, all costs and benefits were modeled in relation to a change in population size for each species. Each actor manages a different population or proportion of the population of each species, which was modelled based on 7 current management practices and data available. The three scenarios were denominated as (1) the Business as Usual (BAU) scenario, which describes the current investments and poaching, (2) a scenario of increased investment and lower poaching (No Poaching scenario), and (3) a scenario for reference where poaching goes practically uncurbed (High Poaching scenario).