On the frontline in the war against wildlife smugglers

More than three feet wide and with seven rows of razor-sharp, serrated teeth, the great white shark jaw makes a fearsome sight as it's pulled from a sealed cardboard box by two uniformed officers. 

The huge bone is the latest item seized by Border Force officials tasked with tackling the £17bn global illegal wildlife trade, and now takes its place alongside other grisly exhibits gathered inside a small, dinghy room at its outpost near Heathrow Airport - which MailOnline exclusively toured this week. 

From multiple rows of shelves stare the glazed eyes of lions, tigers and polar bears, while a baboon's severed head sits mounted inside a bell jar - the animal's open-mouthed, somewhat playful expression making it appear disturbingly lifelike. 

Elsewhere are miniature monkey skulls in glass boxes, stuffed birds of prey, a sliced dolphin brain set into glass, a narwhal tusk, and a crocodile with its hands clasped like a circus performer addressing a crowd.

Even more unsettling are the remains of once majestic animals defiled into trinkets, including a lion's paw clumsily turned into a bottle opener, a matchbox mounted on a leopard skull, a tankard wrapped in elephant skin, sea turtle shells converted into backpacks and all manner of coats, bags, rugs and shoes crafted from skin and fur. 

The prevalence of fashion items points at the lucrative nature of this illicit market, with a high-end snakeskin bag or a shawl made from sought-after fur, like that of a Tibetan antelope, selling for as much as £30,000. 

Everything in this room has been seized by Border Force under Cites, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. This 1975 treaty covers 35,000 animals and plants, some of which cannot be traded at all, while the rest require specific permits. 

Most items on display have been seized for lacking the paperwork to prove they have been obtained legally.  

What is Cites?

The worldwide Cites treaty came into force in 1975 and controls how more than 35,000 animals and plants are commercially traded. 

It is split into three tiers, with the first consisting of species threatened with extinction like gorillas and rhinos that cannot be commercially traded at all. 

The other two tiers consist of other endangered species which cannot be imported into Britain unless they come with a permit showing they are from an approved source. 

In the case of the great white shark jaw, this was intercepted at a parcel hub in Coventry after being mailed to an individual from Taiwan several months ago. 

Wrongly listed as a blue shark or tiger shark - which are not covered by Cites - it was correctly identified by an expert and is now being held pending an appeal. 

Border Force's Cites squad operates from a brutalist office block at Heathrow but is also tasked with intercepting illegal wildlife products from around the UK.

Several rare trees are covered by Cites, which is how His Majesty's Government became the proud owner of a Union Jack embossed electric guitar bearing the signatures of Noel and Liam Gallagher. 

This was seized because the protected wood in its fret board did not come with the required permit, and the instrument is now propped up next to the door alongside other displays featuring seized timber. 

Our friendly and knowledgeable guide, Border Force higher officer Lee Grigg, explained that Cites consists of three appendixes, with the first consisting of species threatened with extinction like gorillas and rhinos that cannot be commercially traded at all. 

The other two include other endangered species which cannot be imported into Britain unless they come with a permit showing they are from an approved source. 

Many of the exhibits seized by Border Force consist of quack remedies, ranging from freeze-dried crocodile blood - a supposed cure for asthma - to vials of bear bile, which is used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat liver conditions. 

Another product touted ground-up cactus as a slimming aid, while black ants were said to 'exceed Viagra and Cialis' as a cure for erectile dysfunction. 

Among the displays were a box of bird eggs smuggled into the country by former Rhodesian SAS member Jeffrey Lendrum, who was caught at Heathrow with 19 hawk, eagle and vulture eggs strapped to his chest - two of which had already hatched. 

Mr Grigg told MailOnline about the role he played in catching the prolific smuggler, describing the moment he took off Lendrum's clothes to reveal the sling of eggs as 'the most surreal strip search ever'. 

Border Force had been aware Lendrum was about to land in the country, so he was taken aside by officers inside Terminal 2 on June 27, 2018.  

The 'cowboy pet wholesaler' who tried to smuggle 102 endangered chameleons into the UK

Earlier this year a 'cowboy pet wholesaler' was prosecuted for smuggling a shipment of 102 endangered pygmy chameleons into this country to sell for a profit - despite not having a licence.

Officers at Heathrow discovered a secret compartment containing the endangered animals in plastic boxes in a shipment from Cameroon. 

Only 76 of the 102 were alive and had to be rehomed at wildlife centres, zoos and colleges.

Mark Brittain, 48, from Hull, (pictured above) admitted two offences of fraudulently evading the prohibition on importing spectral chameleons. He was given a four-month suspended prison sentence, 100 hours' unpaid work and ordered to pay £425 costs.

In total, Mr Grigg and his colleagues recovered £100,000 worth of vulture, eagle and sparrowhawk eggs that the joint Zimbabwe-Irish passport holder had illegally gathered in South Africa. 

 'I don't know if you've seen the bit from Friends where Joey wears all of Chandler's clothes, but it was a bit like that,' recalled the officer. 'It was warm and he had all these layers of clothes on so you could tell it didn't look right. 

'He disclosed he had bird eggs and claimed he had rescued them from trees that were being chopped down in South Africa. He said he was going to hand them over to us when he was in the UK. 

'He had 19 eggs on his body. He was acting as a human incubator, and as they were coming off him at least one was starting to hatch. We then found videos of him illegally collecting eggs, which blew his story out of the water. '

The eggs were successfully raised into chicks at a rescue centre in Gloucestershire and Lendrum was jailed in 2019 for three years and one month after pleading guilty to four wildlife offences.

Danny Hewitt, Border Force Director, told MailOnline that his officers often seized animal and plant products under Sites several times a day, both in passenger bags and freight at airports like Heathrow and in parcels sent through the mail. 

'We dedicate a lot of time to investing in intelligence and have specialist detection capabilities as well, including x-ray machines and dogs that are trained to detect Sites products,' he told MailOnline.

'Wildlife trafficking is the fourth largest international crime worth an estimated £17billion globally every year, so there is a huge organised criminal network behind this.

'It has an impact not only on the environment and local communities, but corruption can be involved as well - so it does really meet all the markers for serious organised crime.' 

Mr Hewitt said officers trying to identify illegal wildlife products moving across the UK border would often look at the countries they were coming from or going to. 

China is a major market for animal parts used in traditional medicine - despite no evidence of their efficacy - while there is a huge demand in regions like the Middle East for bags, shoes and other items made from reptile skin. 

Tell-tale signs officers look for include passengers wearing unusual clothes or walking suspiciously, strange smells coming from bags and even luggage moving around of its own accord. 

Officers are also trained to look at the ingredients of seemingly innocuous products - like bags of coffee - to check they do not contain any items sourced from protected plants or animals. 

'There's a mandatory training course for all new Border Officers about the illegal wildlife trade, and we also have a team of subject matter experts,' Mr Hewitt. 

'We've noticed a bit of an uptick recently in the import of live scorpions, arachnids and reptiles, but of course we also see goods like leathers, belts and handbags which we're also seeing an increase of.'

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He said the ability to buy and sell these products online was a major reason for the increase in wildlife trafficking. 

While criminal gangs control much of the market, ordinary people can find themselves accidentally falling foul of the law by taking back souvenirs that they do not know are protected. 

The Border Force Cites squad operates around the clock and is also involved in intercepting live animals, with Mr Grigg recently called at 1am to respond to a shipment of 1300 tarantulas.

Understanding which items fall foul of Cites can require careful calculation. 

Mr Grigg explained that Cites rules do not apply to excreted waste products such as elephant faeces - said to be a surprisingly popular souvenir for visitors coming back from Africa.

But they would apply to a product like parrot earwax, which is bizarrely considered a natural remedy but falls foul of the rules because the process of harvesting it is considered invasive. 

Meanwhile, snake skin can be considered a Cites product even if it has been naturally shed and collected because of the difficulty of proving conclusively that it has not been obtained by poachers. 

Ivory is covered under Cites, but historical figurines or pieces of jewellery can sometimes be imported into the UK with the correct paperwork. 

The owner may have to provide evidence of the item's age, such as a photograph showing a piece of ivory jewellery being worn by a great-grandmother. 

Most animal or plant items seized by Border Force are destroyed, but some are kept for educational purposes and to highlight the scale of the global trade in illegal wildlife. 

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The most commonly trafficked animal in the world are pangolins, driven largely by demand for their meat and scales in Asia. 

Around 20 tonnes of pangolin scales are trafficked each year for use in traditional medicine, with poaching the animal a particularly easy task because of the way they roll up into a ball when touched. 

Tom Byrne, Head of Net Zero and Environment at British Airways, said the airline works alongside Border Force to train staff how to recognise and report suspected incidents of wildlife trafficking. 

'Wildlife trafficking sadly happens on commercial aviation, so as a leading airline we want to be trying to find solutions,' he told MailOnline. 

'We are training cabin crew, ground crew and check-in staff how to spot anything suspicious and direct it to Border Force. 

'We talk about looking out for luggage or people who might be acting suspiciously, so that could be someone who is dressed abnormally for the conditions or luggage that has an unusual smell.' 

The airline also has a series of 'wildlife champions' who help raise awareness of the problem among staff.  

One of them, Chelsea Thomas, told MailOnline: 'We carry out a lot of wildlife trafficking roadshows to remind colleagues about what they can do to help prevent the trade. 

'Animal welfare is important and it's crucial that we don't lose any more animals to poachers. And we don't want any more species to become endangered.' 

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The sheer scale of the global illegal wildlife trade is mind-boggling, with a recent major crackdown, dubbed Operation Thunder, seeing 53 live birds, 5.5kgs of ivory and 435 live plants seized in the UK alone October 2 and 27, 2023.

This was alongside 1,000 health supplements containing illegal plant and animal products, one ceremonial headdress made from big cat fur, vulture and falcon eggs, a lesser flamingo feather bracelet and 26 products made from reptile skin. 

While Border Force is responsible for frontline detection and seizure of items covered by Sites, criminal investigations are carried out by the police. 

There was controversy earlier this year after it emerged that cuts were being made to the Metropolitan Police's wildlife crime unit, which has fought against illegal trafficking for the past 20 years. 

The move to redeploy the unit's specialised detectives to local policing was called 'woefully wrong' by the animal welfare charity Naturewatch Foundation. 

The Met told the BBC that it would still investigate wildlife crime and there would still be a centralised 'function', but would not provide further details about what that would be. 

Anyone found guilty of illegally smuggling wildlife into the UK risks imprisonment or an unlimited fine.