Racism is related to the process of ‘othering’. Individual people or groups can be described as ‘other’ by depicting them as ‘beasts’. In another form of othering accusations of maltreatment of other than human animals play an important role: awful people abuse innocent animals. Next to that concepts like ‘genocide’ and ‘slavery’ are nowadays used in order to describe the way humans treat other animals. All of this influences the debate on racism.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is deeply rooted in the Chinese culture. Although thousands of animal and plant species are used for medicines legally, some medications contain more sinister elements; illegal animal or plant ingredients of protected species. What is the origin of this demand for rare species as medicine, who are involved in the trade and why is law enforcement complicated? This article will show that the illicit trade in TCM is a form of crime that transcends the borders of China and manifests itself in Western Europe. Various aspects of the trade are highlighted, including criminalization of the use of endangered species, western anthropocentrism and the cultural use of medicine, to understand this relatively invisible crime.

Various paradigms on the structures of organized crime have shaped the criminal investigational approach within the Dutch police towards criminal networks. The idea of pyramid-shaped mafia structures, as dominant in the 1970s, led to large-scale and long-term criminal investigations, trying to get to the ‘top’ of the network. In the 1990s, the image of separate criminal groups, working independently from each other, led to isolated criminal investigations on distinct criminal networks. Today, new insights that have arisen from scientific studies and police practices call again for a renewal of investigational strategies. As shown in this article, criminal networks are not limited by social, cultural or physical boundaries and show a rapid recovery after interventions by state actors. For these reasons, the efficiency of police practices depends on the extent to which the police is able to move along with these networks.