Last week, more than 100 police officers raided restaurants in Da Lat City, Vietnam. What they found was unappetizing: illegally poached animals of nearly 20 species. The authorities arrested more than a dozen restaurant owners for planning to serve meals of pangolins, porcupines, mouse deer, monitor lizards, bears, snakes, and other rare animals—amounting to more than 850 pounds of meat.

Criminal prosecutions are in store for the wholesaler who was supplying the restaurants with the unlawful wildlife goods. A larger investigation is also underway to determine where the animals were captured and what trading networks were involved in transporting and selling them.