THE ORGANIZATION OF THE ILLEGAL TIGER PARTS TRADE IN CHINA.

This paper examines the illegal networks in tiger parts trading from the demand (client's) and the supply (criminal's) perspective by drawing on fieldwork interview data collected from seven tiger parts trading network across three Chinese cities--Lhasa, Xining and Kunming, in 2011. The networks in the three cities were all centralized and independent of each other. Such structure derives from the low risk of arrest and is best suited to deal with the limited number of tiger part products. None of the traders involved were full time, professional tiger parts products traders and should be classified as opportunistic criminals. This article contributes to a broader understanding of criminal networks and to the development of green criminology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]