Chinese police arrest suspected rare animals smugglers

Chinese police have recently arrested 24 people suspected of smuggling and selling products made from rare and endangered animals, including bear paws and pangolin parts.

The Ministry of Public Security said in a statement on Friday that about 4,500 products have been confiscated in police raids across nine provinces.

The value of the animal products was estimated at more than 10 million yuan( 1.6 million US dollars), it said, without specifying when the arrests and confiscations took place.

In July 2013, police in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, uncovered a local restaurant that was purchasing, transporting and selling rare and endangered animal species and products.

Led by the clue, police found two suspects, who were identified by their surname Deng and Li, smuggling rare animal products from overseas, which were then sold and stored in three places in Nanjing.

The products in Nanjing were then sold to Shanghai, and the provinces of Hebei, Shanxi, Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong, Henan and Shaanxi.