Gangs link to animal trade

London's black market in endangered animals is helping fund crime around the world, police warned today.

Commander David Armond from the Met's Specialist Crime Directorate said: "There is evidence from all over the world that criminal networks are being drawn into the smuggling and trading of endangered species, worth several billion pounds every year."

He was speaking as the first conference on the illegal trade and the protection of wildlife opened at London's City Hall. The special Met unit, which also deals with badger-baiting, has confiscated 25,000 wildlife items since 1995. They include traditional Chinese medicines containing ingredients from tigers and sea turtles, as well as shahtoosh shawls from the wool of endangered Tibetan antelopes.

Animals at risk, many threatened by the growth in wildlife crime, include tigers, used in Chinese medicine and hunted for their skins; the black rhino, whose horns are also used in Chinese medicine or as dagger handles; the Asian elephant, killed for tusks used in ivory souvenirs and the pygmy chimpanzee, hunted as bushmeat.