Court sentences 17 for smuggling $28m pangolin scales from Nigeria to China

The Intermediate People’s Court in the eastern city of Wenzhou in China, has sentenced 17 persons for smuggling pangolin scales from Nigeria to China.

According to the court, the convicts imported 23 tonnes of scales from pangolins — the world’s most trafficked mammal — worth 180 million yuan ($28 million) from Nigeria between 2018 and 2019.

The court, on Tuesday, sentenced two men identified as “masterminds behind the racket” to between 13 and 14 years in prison. The others were given jail terms ranging from 15 months to 12 years.

The scales were brought in on, among other things, a consignment “hidden in ginger slices”, the court said.

China removed pangolin body parts from its official list of traditional medicines in June and raised the animal’s protected status to the country’s highest level due to its dwindling numbers.

Pangolin scales are traditionally used in China for a range of ailments, including treating blood clots and aiding lactation, although there is no scientific evidence that they have any medicinal value.

Studies have also suggested that the pangolin may have been the intermediate host that transmitted the coronavirus to humans when it first emerged at a wet market in the Chinese city of Wuhan last year.