![]() Perhaps the leading figure in the battle against wildlife trafficking, Banks, a zoologist by training, has spent more than two decades uncovering the trade in Europe, the USA and Japan, led key investigations in China and Tibet in 2005 and then Bokeo, Laos in 2015. Once you connect with them, there’s a world of wildlife products.” These illegal traders and wildlife criminals are all using social media, whether it's WeChat, or Facebook, or Zalo. “But I would say it’s gone under the counter – not underground. “It’s changed, it's not as open as it was,” says Debbie Banks, campaign leader for tiger and wildlife crime at the Environmental Investigation Agency. But with a smartphone, you can see much more. Even the Blue Shield casino’s pea green gambling tables are marked with the name of this near-extinct animal. Old habits die hard, however, and restaurants still serve up their special “jungle menu” when asked and the sight of clients wearing clothes emblazoned with tiger imagery is telling. Shopkeepers are more often than not frightened at the mention of certain keywords. ![]() On top of the animal rights exposés, last January the area was hit by sanctions from the US, which froze all assets under its jurisdiction and identified four key individuals, including casino owner Zhao Wei, as part of a network that engaged in “horrendous illicit activities” including drugs production, child prostitution, and wildlife trafficking. Under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), an international wildlife agreement that Laos joined in 2004, trade of these animal products is illegal.īut while the tropical heat and bloodlusting mosquitoes remain, much has, at least superficially, changed since then. An investigation by the NGO found boutiques selling ivory and tiger skins, a restaurant with caged bear cubs available to cook on request and tiger bone wine, known as Hu Gu Jiu, in a huge alcohol-filled tank containing an entire tiger skeleton. ![]() “This is not an ordinary place,” says one female casino worker, scurrying along to work.Ī 2015 report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) called Bokeo “a lawless playground” that functioned as a kind of “illegal wildlife supermarket”. ![]()
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