The World’s Most Trafficked Animal Has Scales

In November, customs agents at Hong Kong International Airport spotted something unusual as they X-rayed the baggage of a Chinese man who’d just arrived from Ethiopia. They told the passenger, 44-year-old Lin Jin-Bao, he’d have to open his suitcases before being allowed to board a ferry to his next destination, Macau. Inside, the agents found 24 tightly packed aluminum foil pouches. Each was filled with hundreds of mottled, brownish-red flakes—some shaped like jagged circles, others resembling tiny spades.

Lin was swiftly arrested. The suitcases contained 48 kilograms (106 pounds) of pangolin scales, a once-obscure commodity that’s become wearily familiar to law enforcement agencies in Asian hubs. The pangolin, one of the only scaly mammals known to science, looks a little like a large gecko crossed with an artichoke. It’s now believed to be among the world’s most trafficked animals, the victim of aggressive poaching operations set up to serve demand for its scales, which are considered by some practitioners of Chinese and Vietnamese traditional medicine to have healing properties, and its meat—a status symbol in Vietnam.