China Unveils Syndicate Selling 8 Tons Of Pangolin Scales Worth US$63 Million

Pangolin illustration. (Wikimedia Commons/Shukran888)

JAKARTA - Police officers in Zhuhai, South China's Guangdong Province, recently uncovered an animal trafficking scheme involving eight tons of pangolin scales worth 400 million yuan, equivalent to US$62 million, China Central Television reported.

"The number of pangolins killed is estimated at 16,000, taking into account the scales of one pangolin weighing about 0.5 kilograms", according to He Weiyou, a police officer from the Zhuhai Public Security Bureau, citing Global Times, September 2.

Police first discovered the nest where this criminal gang kept smuggled pangolin scales, endangered wild birds and other live wildlife in July 2020, arresting 17 suspects.

After six months of investigation, the police finally uncovered the entire smuggling organization and arrested 16 other suspects.

Investigations revealed that most of the smuggled pangolin scales were shipped to Bozhou, in East China's Anhui Province, a city that has been a distribution site for traditional Chinese medicinal ingredients since ancient times.

In June 2020, China upgraded the pangolin to the first class protected wild animal category. That same year, the 2020 Chinese Pharmacopoeia excluded the pangolin, meaning the mammal was officially removed from the list of ingredients for traditional Chinese medicine.

To note, the number of pangolins in China has declined sharply in recent years, is on the verge of extinction due to habitat change and man-made destruction, coupled with serious hunting.

The Bamboo Curtain Country is known to have strengthened protection of wild pangolins, standardized rescue work, and improved their breeding habitat to strengthen their protection. The country is also intensifying its crackdown on hunting and trafficking of pangolins and related products.

In fact, China banned the hunting of wild pangolins in 2007 and stopped all commercial imports of pangolins and their derivatives from October 2018.

China has also stepped up international law enforcement cooperation in the protection of pangolins and has launched a chain crackdown with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and Interpol.