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Community-based forestry has the potential to improve forest management in the commons. Unfortunately, the ease with which logging interests are able to ignore community decisions and steal timber remains troubling. This article analyzes how illegal logging is highly erosive to community cohesiveness and institutions in the context of community forestry in Mexico. It analyzes the modus operandi of clandestine logging operations and their complex relationship with common property managers. Resistance and complicity simultaneously manifest themselves in the struggle to protect forest resources. Finally, to bridge scholarship with practice, I propose a framework for diagnosing timber theft in common property forests that may help orient conservation efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]