Ecowatch: Small parts, big impact – Poachers are upping their smuggling game

Tasty keropok? No, these are pangolin scales that have been fried to make them look like chips and easier to smuggle. In Malaysia, the Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) has been pushed to the edge of extinction by relentless poaching. — Traffic China

LOCATED just outside the state capital, Taman Johor Jaya is known for its plentiful food choices, having a popular food street where vendors sell everything from hawker fare to durians brought in by the truckloads from Pahang.

Flanked by malls, morning markets, and shops, the neighbourhood, like many parts of Johor, has been seeing an influx of traffic following the economic boom in the state.

Certainly nothing would have prepared residents for a group of uniformed officers pulling up outside a double-storey detached house on a peaceful Saturday evening on April 4.

Surrounded by a high grey wall topped with stainless steel spikes and fronted by a wrought iron gate, the well-kept white house with a low grey slate roof was occupied by a Vietnamese couple.

Inside, officers from the state’s Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan) found a stash of wildlife parts, including python skins and bear bile sacs, worth over a staggering RM36.8mil. Among the items were 107 compressed pieces believed to be processed tiger parts, a first in a wildlife trafficking seizure in Malaysia.

According to international wildlife trade monitoring group Traffic, animal parts are now being processed into seemingly innocuous items, such as tiger “glue” and even fried pangolin scales “chips”.

Instead of moving whole animals or easily recognisable parts across borders, items like shoes made from monitor lizard skin, rhino horn shavings, elephant skin charms, and those fried pangolin scales are making it harder for enforcement officers to spot illegal trade.

A Vietnamese man later pleaded guilty to two charges of possessing various protected wildlife parts without a licence.

Wild things

Sadly, every part of a tiger is deemed useful so the carcass of a Malayan tiger can fetch up to RM500,000 on the black market – even the animal’s bones can be used, boiled down and turned into a thick medicinal gel or “glue”. Despite the persistent lack of evidence of any sort of efficacy, tiger parts have been used for ages in traditional medicine to treat ailments ranging from rheumatism to arthritis and joint pains, and even for general good health.

When The Star sits down with Traffic South-East Asia earlier in 2026 to look through recent photographs of these wildlife parts, the tiger glue, at first glance, comes across like a small round cake.

The group’s training and capacity-building officer Renee Yee explains that consumers usually cut off a bit of the glue cake with a spoon or knife and dissolves it in warm water before drinking the mixture.

Trade in pangolin scales is illegal, with all eight species of the mammal protected under Appendix I – the highest level of protection – of Cites (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). How do poachers get around this?

Pointing to a photograph of what looks like pieces of curly keropok, Yee says to avoid detection, wildlife traffickers have begun frying pangolin scales.

Usually when enforcement officers catch the illegal trafficking of this animal, it involves seizures of bag after bag of the animal’s scales, skin, or carcasses.

“But we find that recently, what they’ve been doing to avoid detection, they fry the scales and put them into a Ziploc bag and declare them as chips.

“If they label a packet like some sort of chips, honestly, you probably wouldn’t look twice to see what it is,” Yee explains, adding that these fried pangolin scales are also found in smaller consignments so they look legitimate.

There are also photographs of carved pangolin scales fashioned into jewellery and combs – or gua sha, a tool used in traditional medicine to scrape the skin to improve circulation – shoes made of the skins of various animals, including elephants and monitor lizards; helmeted hornbill pendants and amulets; and ivory, tiger bones, and pangolin scales in powder form. These are just some examples of the vast global illegal trade in wildlife and wildlife parts, which Interpol estimated in 2023 to be worth up to US$20bil (RM79.3bil) a year.

While many of the wildlife parts are used as ornaments, in traditional medicine, or even as status symbols, live animals are also trafficked for the booming exotic pet craze.

A thousand words

Traffic has been compiling examples of the forms the trade takes in its handbooks, Picture Guide to Illegal Wildlife Parts & Products Commonly Found in Southeast Asia and Identification of Commonly Traded Wildlife in Southeast Asia to help customs and enforcement officers better spot these items.

Yee says Traffic understands that it is tricky and challenging for enforcement officers to spot and correctly identify wildlife parts as they often have to carry out the checks quickly.

“So Traffic developed these identification guides on the most commonly traded wildlife and animal parts in this region, and how they are being traded.

“There are a lot of guides out there with a lot of description, and those are really good for conservationists or scientists, but for the guy who’s standing at the border and looking at a bag or a box or a container, these kinds of guides offer them quick access.

“They can quickly see what it is, what it could be,” she says, adding that officers can then decide whether to detain the shipment or call a supervisor.

Besides the guidebooks – which also come in mini versions – Traffic regularly conducts training with enforcement personnel. One such instance occurred in March with 163 Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) officers from Kelantan, Pahang, and Terengganu.

The training is carried out under a Traffic project called “Transboundary Problem-Solving to Prevent the International Trafficking of Malayan Tigers” which is funded by the United Kingdom government through the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund.

It is also during such training sessions that Traffic updates enforcement personnel with smugglers’ latest modus operandi and photos.

“Sometimes what’s new is really relative to the country and where it’s happening. This ‘goreng’ pangolin has been detected in smuggling between Africa and Europe.

“Having said that, traffickers are constantly changing what they offer, how they offer it, and how they pack and send it.”

Yee notes it’s not possible for those trained to be able to identify everything every time.

“But once you see something that’s odd, like any red coloured bead bracelet, you’re now going to immediately remember what we said and wonder if that could be elephant skin.”

At the ready

Leftenan Madya Maritim Mohd Yuskhairul Al-Hasis Mat Yunus is one of the officers who attended Traffic’s one-day training in March, and he says he believes he will find it useful in the course of his work.

Whereas previously he wasn’t sure which animal parts were allowed to be traded, following Traffic training he now has a clearer understanding of how to identify possible smuggled wildlife.

Mohd Yuskhairul says he used to have the impression that poachers only went after the meat.

“But everything is targeted, including fur, nails, and fangs. From the training, we got the exposure and the latest information,” he says.

Based at Pengkalan Kubor in Kelantan, Mohd Yuskhairul

has yet to come across any attempts at wildlife smuggling in his four years as MMEA personnel.

Most of his encounters now are with fishing boats from Indonesia and Thailand entering Malaysian waters.

“We carry out detailed spot checks on these boats, checking if they are carrying out smuggling, but for the time being, we haven’t come across any,” he says.

But when he does, Mohd Yuskhairul will be ready.