It was business as usual Wednesday for the Dubai shop illegally selling smuggled skins, claws and teeth of poached tigers and other endangered species, thanks to a legal loophole, the Gulf News reported Thursday.
Despite the practice contravening agreements set down by the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), of which the UAE is a signatory, officials said the sale of the products in the UAE is not illegal.
A Dubai Economic Department spokesman was quoted by the daily as saying that, "currently the sale of any type of skin is allowed to take place in the UAE, whether they come from cows or tigers.
"The fact that the skins were illegally smuggled from the original country and then brought illegally into the UAE is not our concern. International trade may be illegal, but actually selling them here is not," he stressed -- Albawaba.com
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