Covert footage obtained by the Guardian reveals how organised crime networks in Laos are using souvenir shops as fronts to sell illegal wildlife products, including pangolin scales, bear bile, and tiger bones, to a growing influx of Chinese tourists.
Front shops hide illegal trade
In one dark and deserted shop in Laos, shelves display large bags of tea, local coffee, trinkets, and cigarettes. However, photographs of wild animals on the walls hint at the real merchandise. Upstairs, glass cases contain products banned worldwide: bracelets and chopsticks made from ivory, crocodile hide, reptile-skin belts, large bones, powdered items, and a glass tank of liquid. Most egregious are bowls filled with pangolin scales—a product driving the world’s most-trafficked mammal toward extinction.
The Guardian gained access to multiple such businesses. In another shop disguised as a cigarette store, a large section of a pangolin tail sat on a shelf alongside jars of snakes in fluid. Many were traditional Chinese medicine shops selling both legal and illegal items, while others posed as heavily guarded cultural centres for Chinese tourists, equipped with electric gates and CCTV.
Pangolin poaching crisis
More than 1 million pangolins have been poached in the past decade—more than rhinos, elephants, and tigers combined. Their scales are prized in traditional Chinese medicine, and their meat is eaten as a status symbol. Conservationists estimate one pangolin is poached every three minutes, leading to some species being critically endangered. Jeremy Phan, director of the Lao Conservation Trust for Wildlife, notes that pangolins are increasingly found in Vientiane, far from their natural habitat. His team rescued a three-week-old pangolin that had been for sale in a restaurant; its mother was likely killed in the illegal trade.
China's belt and road fuels tourism boom
The Laos-China railway, completed in 2021, stretches over 600 miles from Kunming to Vientiane and has carried more than 73 million passengers since opening. This infrastructure, part of China's belt and road initiative, has made travel cheap and quick, opening Laos as a destination for Chinese tourists and leading to a surge in low-budget tour groups that prop up the illegal trade.
Brother Nut, a Chinese activist and performance artist, went undercover on one such tour and shared footage with the Guardian. He was taken to a shop selling rice noodles, which in reality offered endangered animal parts like rhino horn, bear bile, and pangolin. His hidden camera showed stalls with whole dead pangolins and bowls of scales, with salespeople claiming medicinal benefits such as curing cancer and reducing inflammation—claims unsupported by science. Tiger bones were also sold, banned globally under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites).
Tourists coerced into buying illegal products
Brother Nut described how tourists, many elderly, were pressured into buying illegal products after paying as little as 100 yuan (£11) for a four-night trip. He suspects tour operators price trips low to profit from sales at front shops. "During the tour there were two times when the guide forced the gates of the store shut, and we did feel a bit scared," he said. Tour leaders falsely claimed the products were legal in Laos and urged visitors to buy them to help the struggling economy. "Actually, none of the money went to local Lao people," Brother Nut said. "All the payments were made through WeChat Pay or Alipay, and the money ended up in the hands of the people running the scam." His group spent about 100,000 yuan (£11,000) at these businesses.
Ongoing threat to wildlife
Despite rescues, criminal networks continue to target both humans and animals, pushing vulnerable species to the brink of extinction. Phan was able to release one rescued pangolin back into the wild, but the illegal trade persists, fueled by Chinese tourism and facilitated by the belt and road initiative.
