Schemes funnelling Chinese tour groups through illegal wildlife shopping sites in Laos appear to be persisting and even expanding in spite of some law enforcement action by authorities, Mongabay has learned.
In July 2025, a joint Mongabay investigation identified up to 21 illegal wildlife shopping sites embedded in package tours catering to Chinese nationals in the Laotian cities of Luang Prabang and Vientiane.
Typically masquerading as cultural centres, restaurants, jewellery stores and the like, or as stores embedded in such venues, the shopping sites typically only showcase their products to Chinese-language tours run by Chinese and Laotian operators, while barring entry to anyone else.
Since then, the number of these shops appears to have nearly doubled, according to multiple groups investigating these operations on the ground. Mongabay has seen evidence suggesting that as many as 35 shops are now operating in Luang Prabang and Vientiane, with 22 in the former and the rest in the latter.
When Mongabay asked the Laotian Department of Forestry about the first 21 shops in mid-2025, a spokesperson suggested that at least some of them were not registered as retail shops and that they would investigate.
Since then, authorities have made seizures of suspected illegal wildlife products at several shopping sites in Vientiane and Luang Prabang, including nearly 50 kilograms (110 pounds) during inspections of 17 unnamed locations in November and December, and more than 57 kg (126 lbs) at an unnamed location on June 13, according to local media reports.
Somvang Phimmavong, director-general of the Department of Forestry in Laos’s Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, said action had been taken against an unspecified number of shops identified in Mongabay’s 2025 report, including the “seizure of prohibited wildlife specimens and initiation of legal proceedings where warranted.”
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Shops are not just ‘wildlife stores’; they are embedded in tour circuits, fronted as cafés, museums or cultural venues, and supported by commissions, logistics and Chinese-speaking sales networks.
Kristina Amerhauser, head, Mekong Observatory at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
“The Government of Lao PDR maintains a zero-tolerance policy towards illegal wildlife trade and remains fully committed to implementing its obligations under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES),” Phimmavong wrote in an email, referring to the global trade convention under which nearly every country has agreed to protect wildlife from unsustainable commerce. He declined to share details on specific cases, citing ongoing investigations.
Kristina Amerhauser, head of the Mekong Observatory at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), with which Mongabay collaborated on the 2025 report, said “small seizures” like those reported in the press would not suffice on their own to address the shopping sites’ spread.
“Public exposure [of the sites] has not seemingly led to disruption because enforcement often remains symbolic and fragmented,” Amerhauser wrote in an email.
Phimmavong said the continued expansion of illegal wildlife shopping sites had not been verified by authorities.
“We therefore encourage caution regarding the accuracy and methodology of the information provided by unnamed sources,” he told Mongabay. “We remain open to reviewing any credible and verifiable evidence that may assist ongoing enforcement efforts.”
Chinese package tours fuel the illegal wildlife trade
The shopping sites were identified based on information from several groups working to expose illegal wildlife trade in Laos, including Chinese investigative groups Field Raw and Agent C Wildlife Initiative.
Other parties that shared information with Mongabay asked not to be named in this story, citing concerns over retaliation. Investigators first mapped out suspected sites through on-the-ground observation in the streets of Vientiane and Luang Prabang, then confirmed illegal wildlife sales by reviewing Chinese social media posts and posing as tourists on package tours. Field Raw has published undercover video from these tours.
For the 2025 story, a Mongabay reporter visited the locations of 15 of the sites, managing to get inside four of them, where products on display ranged from large carved-ivory statues to slices of rhino horn, as well as pangolin scales, tiger bones, crocodile fat, bear bile, and more. Mongabay has not independently confirmed the locations of any of the newer sites identified by investigators.
Besides the reported increase in number, some of the shopping sites identified in 2025 appear to have grown in size. One shop in Luang Prabang that bore no name or signage when Mongabay dropped by in 2025 appears to have expanded to roughly 10,000 square meters (nearly 108,000 square feet), according to satellite imagery.
Investigators who visited the shops this year say the core scheme doesn’t appear to have fundamentally changed. After arriving in Laos via train or plane, Chinese tour groups are ferried by bus or minivan to various destinations, where they’re often pressured into buying illegal wildlife products.
Investigators say they observed minivans and buses carrying Chinese tourists to new shopping sites this year as well as some of those that Mongabay visited last year, often with as many as 10 vehicles parked outside at once.
The newer sites, they say, bear many of the distinctive hallmarks of the shops previously confirmed as selling illegal wildlife products, such as the same decor, the same armed guards with military fatigues and machine guns, and the same signs saying that only Chinese nationals on prebooked tours can enter.
One investigator who has repeatedly gone undercover on Chinese package tours in Laos tells Mongabay that despite the aesthetic similarities, he believes the shops are probably run by separate groups, with newer ones copying the decor and business model of existing shops, though more investigation is needed to determine who the owners are.
Investigators say they’ve also observed an increase in social media posts about the shops by tour group participants, with some complaining of “deceptive tourist shopping schemes” or reporting being pressured to buy illegal wildlife products by shopkeepers, some of whom are said to be Chinese nationals posing as members of Laotian ethnic minority groups. There are also accounts of fake products or products being sold to tourists at inflated prices.
One participant posted on RedNote that they’d paid just 2,000 yuan (roughly $300) for a spot on a six-day, four-flight tour, positing that the shopping trips must be subsidising the rock-bottom price. Another said their group spent 10 times that on heavily marked-down, though possibly fake, wildlife products at a single site.
One tourist posted in February that a shopping site guarded by Laotian military personnel was selling rhino horn, pangolin scale powder, and ivory products, while another post from May warned netizens to protect their elderly from Chinese sellers in Laos claiming to be connected to high-ranking Laotian officials.
One investigator who went undercover on these tours told Mongabay that some operators have abandoned participants midway through tours if people weren’t buying enough wildlife products. In these instances, the investigator said, this had prompted the ire of the Chinese Embassy in Vientiane and consulate in Luang Prabang, where diplomatic staff have had to provide assistance to confused Chinese tourists. Mongabay’s questions emailed to the Chinese Embassy in Laos went unanswered.
“Shops are not just ‘wildlife stores’; they are embedded in tour circuits, fronted as cafés, museums or cultural venues, and supported by commissions, logistics and Chinese-speaking sales networks,” GI-TOC’s Amerhauser said.
The Chinese Embassy in Laos issued warnings in February and April against taking low-budget tours “that include forced shopping,” noting that “Lao law prohibits the sale of ivory, rhinoceros horns, pangolins, and other wildlife products. Violators will be punished by law; do not trust others to purchase them illegally.”
Phimmavong of the forestry department acknowledged the embassy’s warnings, telling Mongabay, “We are aware that Chinese authorities regularly issue public advisories reminding their citizens to comply with wildlife protection laws when travelling abroad.”
Mongabay wrote to China’s foreign ministry and CITES authorities, but neither had responded by the time this story was published.
A GI-TOC report produced as part of the 2025 joint investigation with Mongabay found the newly constructed China-Laos Railway was a significant factor in the illegal wildlife trade’s expansion, easing travel to Laos. Data from the Laos Tourism Development Department show China contributed more than one-quarter of all foreign tourists to Laos in 2025, with 1.15 million Chinese nationals visiting last year, up from 641,000 in 2023, the year the railway began international journeys.
The Guardian highlighted the railway’s role in facilitating the package tour shopping schemes in a video report published on July 14.
“This is what facilitates the whole thing — this brand new, high-speed rail line between China and Laos has made travelling between the two countries cheaper and quicker than ever before,” reporter Robyn Vinter says in the video, which also features undercover tour footage from a Chinese investigator.
Pangolins on the menu
Tour groups are increasingly being taken to restaurants to eat pangolin, which is highly threatened, investigators say.
Field Raw has published undercover footage of live and frozen pangolins being brought out for tour group participants at restaurant stops. The group told Mongabay that every Chinese restaurant they visited while undercover on a tour claimed to be able to source pangolin meat.
Tourists eat pangolin more out of a sense of exoticism rather than perceived health benefits, investigators told Mongabay. They added that from speaking to tour operators, between 20% and 30% of tour groups pay to eat pangolin. Each group, they said, could consume six or seven pangolins, although these too are sold at inflated prices as tour guides make deals with the Chinese restaurants to squeeze out more profits.
One investigator said pangolins are sold semi-openly at Dongmakkhay Market in Vientiane for $100-$200 per animal, based on prices they observed in the field. Restaurant prices are nearly 10 times that, they said.
While the investigator said they’ve been able to rescue pangolins from Dongmakkhay Market with the assistance of law enforcement, they told Mongabay that, during the handful of attempted rescues made, traders were usually able to flee or dispose of evidence before authorities arrived.
The Lao Conservation Trust for Wildlife, which operates a hotline for public tips on wildlife crimes in Laos and a rescue centre for confiscated animals, has said that just 7.5% of the tips it received in 2025 resulted in seizures by authorities, with Laotian authorities demanding per diems for time spent on wildlife seizures.
Phimmavong of the forestry department said verified cases of pangolin sales would be subject to investigation and enforcement.
Tackling the trade
The spread of illegal wildlife shopping sites may make it harder for Laos to get off the CITES blacklist. In 2023, CITES banned Laos from trading in any CITES-listed species due to wildlife-related crimes flourishing.
The ban was partially lifted for certain plant species in 2025 after Laos made some progress implementing recommendations from CITES, including a 2025 prime ministerial order for “increased strictness” regarding trade in endangered species. But the continued proliferation of the illegal wildlife trade has kept Laos largely blacklisted.
Laos is motivated to escape the CITES blacklist so that it can resume the trade of long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis), which are widely used in biomedical research.
Phimmavong said Laos is confident in its efforts to combat wildlife crime and committed to implementing its international obligations under CITES. He denied allegations that government officials or institutions may be offering protection to shops selling illegal wildlife products. Outside some shops in Luang Prabang and Vientiane, Mongabay and other sources have seen guards wearing Laotian military uniforms and carrying AKM rifles, which are standard issue in the Laotian military.
“The mere appearance of military-style or military-coloured clothing cannot be considered evidence of military affiliation, government authorisation, or official involvement without verification by the competent authorities,” Phimmavong said.
Organised shopping tours for illegal wildlife products have turned up in Cambodia, according to a recent report by Earth League International, an NGO. Police also recently raided a suspected illegal wildlife shop in Vietnam reportedly run by Chinese nationals.
“I think there is going to have to be a coordinated approach to these shops across the region [if] the issue is truly going to be addressed,” Naomi Doak, regional coordinator for counter wildlife trafficking at the Wildlife Conservation Society, told Mongabay. “If, for example, Lao enforcement agencies were to deal with this issue, then while the model remains profitable, they will move somewhere else.”
The illegal wildlife trade often converges with other crimes and illicit economies, said Patricia Raxter, director of intelligence and analysis at antitrafficking organisation United for Wildlife.
In an email, Raxter told Mongabay that if Laos fails to take action, then the trade will continue to grow.
“Laos has a real opportunity to improve its reputation as a wildlife trafficking hub,” she said, noting that shuttering shops selling wildlife products would be a good first step.
This story was published with permission from Mongabay.com.
