Illegal wildlife trade growing in London, police warn

5:31pm Saturday 29th November 2003

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If you're feeling a little tired, or are breaking out in pimples, there's one traditional remedy you may not have considered: powdered tiger brain.

No one is encouraging you to take tiger brain for your problems, but you would be surprised how many people apparently do despite the fact it is illegal to sell it, or even own it, in Britain.

The Met Police has seized boxes and boxes of powders made of various parts of tiger from shops across London.

Along with products from other endangered species including live animals more than 25,000 items have been confiscated by the Wildlife Crime Unit in London.

In fact, according to senior figures in the fight against international trade in endangered species, London is a trading post for the growing illegal market in rare animals, a fact that becomes clearer with every successful raid.

"Don't think it doesn't come here," says Andy Fisher, head of the Wildlife Crime Unit at Scotland Yard, talking to a conference on wildlife crime in London.

Rhino horn is another popular, illegal, source for traditional medicines. Not, as is popularly believed, for brewing up aphrodisiacs this is an offensive myth to communities which actually use it, Andy Fisher says. Rhino horn is used in some traditional medicines to cure fevers and high blood pressure.

In 1996 the National Crime Squad made what is still the largest haul anywhere in the world, ever, of rhino horn: 129 horns from all African and Asian species were found in two lockup garages in South Kensington. They would have had a black-market value of millions of pounds.

"This is not like the drug trade where you can go and make more. The supply of rhino horn is finite," Andy Fisher says.

He's backed up by the Senior Enforcement Officer from the UN body fighting the trade in endangered species, John Sellar.

Mr Sellar moved to the UN post from the Scottish Police Service, and has since become well acquainted with the problems posed by the illegal animal trade in London.

Though he rates highly Heathrow's enforcement of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), he says London is a 'major consumer' of endangered species products.

This, he says is proven by just how successful the Heathrow customs operation is: the market in the capital is growing, and organised crime is getting more and more heavily involved.

Three things make the trade in endangered species attractive to international criminal gangs: high profits, a low rate of detection, and high profits.

According to Mr Sellar, China is the only country where animal crime is taken seriously, in total 28 people have been sentenced to death there for crimes against the environment.

"I'm not here to encourage you to adopt capital punishment for badger baiters, but it does show you there are countries where wildlife crime is taken seriously."

He adds: "What we need from you are policing skills. We don't necessarily need someone who can tell a tiger skin from a leopard skin we need someone who knows how to lock doors on the right people."

Mr Fisher gives an example of the sort of profit to be made from the illegal fur trade.

The Met launched an awareness campaign about Shahtoosh shawls over two years ago, but many people still have not heard of them. They are made from the pelt of the Tibetan Antelope. Two confiscated examples are on display.

"Feel them before you go," Mr Fisher tells the conference. "You won't ever feel anything else like it."

The shawls are made from the 'under-wool' of the antelopes, which can survive extreme cold. On the black market they have changed hands for 12,000.

But the trade in these shawls is slowing down. Andy says: "We don't expect to find 128 of them in a shop. In fact, we can't find them in a shop at all at the moment, but that doesn't mean the trade has stopped."

He looks a little like a disappointed shopper. He'd rather none were sold in London.

But when they are bought, do people know they are supporting illegal trade and criminal gangs?

"Most people don't want to purchase endangered species, but they may be doing so without knowing it," Andy says.

David Armond of the Specialist Crime Unit agrees. He says experience shows members of the public don't want to buy when they are told endangered species are involved.

But there are exceptions, what Mr Fisher calls the 'pitbull mentality': the idea that "If I've got a dangerous pet it makes me look more important somehow or other," he says.

Lara the Eurasian Lynx is just one example.

"She lives at London Zoo nothing unusual about that." Mr Fisher pauses, "Except she was found wandering free in the streets of Cricklewood."

Lara was tracked by London Zoo at the request of the Met. She has been living there for two years. No one knows how she came to be loose in north London.

"It is illegal to release non-native creatures into the wild, and yet there are some pretty strange beasts wandering round in London."

So, what is the Met doing to halt the trade and the growing popularity of unusual pets?

"We are not just interested in prosecuting people. We want to work with traders so people know what they can and can't sell," Mr Fisher says.

And he wants the public to be more aware of the problems.

"Even the tiger that's killed on another continent: he's gonna turn up as medicine and be sold to somebody and that may be you."

Mr Sellar is more blunt about what he wants to do to the illegal animal traders: "There's a lot of people out there who need locked up. That's what we know how to do, so let's do it."