Wildlife Traffickers Are Setting Up Fake Zoos On Facebook To Sell The Scales Of Endangered Pangolins
By Ryan Broderick, BuzzFeed News, May 6 2020
“Wildlife traffickers are openly selling critically endangered pangolins and their scales on Facebook, setting up profiles for fake petting zoos that direct potential buyers to private WhatsApp numbers where deals are made.
In an investigation published Wednesday, the Tech Transparency Project found half a dozen public posts selling pangolin scales simply by searching for the name of the animal written in Vietnamese. Many of the pages offered pangolin scales, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine. The Tech Transparency Project is a research initiative by the Campaign for Accountability, a nonpartisan, nonprofit watchdog organization.”