BEIJING: Police in China have successfully cracked an underground wild life smuggling operation.
A haul of more than 1,500 whole animals and their body parts were discovered, including rare and protected wild life such as pangolin, salamander and leopard cats, reported People’s Daily Online.
This large and lucrative network was spread out over more than 10 provinces in China and had an estimated value in the millions.
Police started investigating the smuggling network following rumours of its existence in October 2014.
After several months of investigation, 65 people have been arrested in connection with wild life smuggling while more are still under investigation.
A large haul of animals were found in a small room of just over a hundred square feet where several large freezer units stood side by side.
Inside were the curled up dead bodies of pangolins, frozen into position.
Their hard skins have been shelled and, next to the pale, white flesh, bloodied icicles have formed.
Meanwhile, other units are packed to the rim with bear claws.
A total of 1,568 animals and their body parts have been found since the start of the investigation.
Of these, 370 were pangolins while 600 others were considered particularly rare and endangered.
It is not known whether any live animals have been found.
This extensive collection of wildlife meats were destined for the banqueting table before they were uncovered by the police.
Indeed, of those already arrested, more than a fifth worked in hospitality – the end game of the lucrative network.
What many restaurateurs don’t know about their precious ingredient is that the animals are often manipulated in toxic ways to increase their perceived value.
Pangolins smuggled live ready for the food market
For example, a live pangolin, one of the most popular wild meats, might be hooked up to a drip.
This is then used to inject liquid lime into the animal’s stomach, increasing the body weight by as much as 500 grams.
For ease of transport, the animals are dosed with a sedative. Upon arrival, they are then injected with a stimulant so they can appear lively to the buyers.
Even dead pangolins can’t escape the cruel treatment.
The flesh is dipped into the strongly caustic hydrogen peroxide to bleach the skin and turn it white.
It is also given a formaldehyde bath, used as an embalming fluid, to prevent it from ‘going off’.
Restaurateurs then offered the rare bushmeat to their long term customers, often texting them with a coded message of what’s available and how much for.
A live pangolin can be worth as much as 1,400 Yuan (£140) per kilogram while a frozen one is still worth 500 Yuan (£50) per kilogram.
Bear claws are generally frozen and are valued at around 1,000 Yuan (£100) per kilogram.
With years of trade, the network is thought to have made more than 100 million Yuan (over £10 million).
The irony is that, while these meats are considered restorative in Chinese culture, they do more harm than good after the severe doctoring.
Although it seems that wild meats are widely available, the operation is actually extremely secretive.
If an unknown customer went to a restaurant and tried to order off menu, staff would simply deny the existence of the dish.
In spite of this, word of the operation had spread to a local police department in Wenzhou, eastern China, where the investigation began.
A rural leisure resort in Wenzhou was said to offer wild pangolin on its menu.
After days spent staking out the restaurant’s kitchen and following the delivery vans, the police finally tracked down a minivan that supplied the illegal ingredients.
The minivan’s owner, a man referred to as Han, became the first member of the smuggling network to be apprehended.
Han, a 35-year-old local man, admitted that he has already been in the bushmeat trade for several years and shared much of its sordid details with the police.
What started out as a regular business, supplying widely available wild game, soon escalated into pangolins and bear claws when he met ‘insiders’ from Guangdong and Guangxi in southern China.
‘When business is good,’ Han revealed, ‘I can expect a delivery once a week.’
And business can be very good as he supplied both live and frozen pangolins to high-end conference centres and leisure resorts.
The operation also extended beyond Chinese borders.
Another detained smuggler, named as Li, was thought to have purchased pangolins from Vietnam to distribute across China.
Due to the huge expense of these elaborate wild meat banquets, Chinese media has speculated that corrupt government officials may also be involved in the consumption of the rare animals.
China’s Wild Life Protection Law is extremely severe. Those convicted of illegally catching, killing, buying or selling the protected wild life is punishable with the death sentence.
However, with the alluring possibility of making tens of millions, the deterrent doesn’t seem to be enough.
The case is still under investigation.