Illegal Trading At Myanmar's Lawless Region, Mong La (Photo : Getty Images)
Although the scales of the pangolin, the most trafficked animal on Earth, are made of keratin which makes its medicinal worth dubious, smugglers continue to trade on the scaly mammal. Chinese medicine believes that pangolin scales could cure a lot of ailments such as stomach ulcers, back pain and even mental illness.
Gizmodo reported that Chinese customs officials confiscated 3.1 tons of scales from the mammal valued at over $2 million on the black market. It is considered the largest pangolin smuggling attempt in China.
Uneven Texture of Cargo
The smuggling try occurred on Dec. 10 when customs officials who x-rayed the shipment from Nigeria noticed items with uneven texture when the container was supposed to be full of large logs from Africa, CNN reports. The pangolin parts were kept in 101 packets placed at the back of the container.
With 7,500 pangolins involved, which were mixed with a container of wood products imported from Nigeria, it dwarfs the 2,674 carcasses of pangolin confiscated by authorities in 2015. Besides the animal’s scales, the pangolin is also considered a delicacy by Chinese which is why pangolin parts sell for about 5,000 yuan ($700) per kilo. Besides the confiscation of the pangolin scales and meat, customs officials from Shanghai detained three people who are suspected of smuggling the shipment from Africa to Asia in 2015.
Help From Locals
One of the suspects began buying pangolin scales in 2015 and secured help from locals to distribute the scales in containers and import it to China. NPR reported that the pangolin trade is banned by an international body that regulates global commerce of endangered species.
The aim of the international ban on its trade by the Natural Resource Defense Council is to give the scaly anteater “a fighting chance at survival.”
