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Police in wildlife potions swoop at shop in Chinatown
MEDICINAL potions made from endangered animals including leopards and tigers were seized when police swooped on a shop in Chinatown on Tuesday.
The Met’s wildlife crime unit raided a shop on the day a legal loophole was closed.
Traders had previously been able to claim products came from countries with few wildlife crime laws – and it was hard to prove the goods’ true origins.
But now medicines from rare species are illegal wherever they come from.
Det Con David Flint said: “Most traditional Chinese medicines are not made from endangered species and can be sold legally.
“However, a small number of products do contain these ingredients, and it is these products that have an impact on wild populations.”
“To meet this demand, poachers and traffickers will continue to profit from killing and supplying animals from other parts of the world, and the future of some of our most endangered species will be at risk.”
Police seized more than 200 products from the shop on Tuesday.
A spokesman for the Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine, which monitors medicines sold in Chinatown, said: “The ATCM has always condemned the illegal trade in endangered plant and animal species, and our members are subject to strict rules which prohibit the use of any such material.”
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