Animals are useful for money laundering as well. According to Picon's agency, smugglers frequently trade illegal drugs for endangered species, resulting in cashless transfers. And an official from Interpol has told Time that the agency is tracking airplanes that fly into Leticia, a port in the Colombian Amazon, with cargoes of motorcycles and appliances, then fly out with animals obtained in the area. It is in Russia, where Galster had his close call, that professional criminals have penetrated most deeply into the endangered-species business. Customers can also place orders for wild ginseng, walrus ivory, tiger furs, sea otters and beluga whales.
Some dealers even have price lists printed in English.
Supplying this bizarre bazaar, and the export market as well, is a nationwide network of loosely affiliated professional gangs, supplied by ruthless poachers. Using snowmobiles, helicopters, horses and dogs, the poachers have killed half the musk deer population in just three years and pushed the Siberian tiger to the brink of extinction. As few as 150 of the tigers are left. These are not laid-back crooks. The Russian Environment Ministry's antipoaching unit set up a sting in Khabarovsk to trap a known mafia member involved in this network, but according to Galster the operation went bad.