Recently, Xi'an Railway Transport Court in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province has sentenced two people involved in a wildlife trade by express delivery to five years in prison. Screenshot of the package from D Video

Recently, Xi'an Railway Transport Court in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province has sentenced two people involved in a wildlife trade by express delivery to five years in prison. 

According to the court, Liu, who lives in Xi'an, received a delivery in 2017. She thought she was getting the fresh food she had bought online, but when she opened the package, it turned out to be a dead tiger cub.

Local police immediately began investigating the case, and two men surnamed Hao and Chen from East China's Anhui Province have been arrested after in-depth investigation.

According to the report, as there are many circuses that raise lions, tigers and other animals in Anhui, Chen once asked Li, a circus trainer, to find a tiger cub. In July 2017, a female tiger kept by Li's circus gave birth to a stillborn tiger cub. The circus owner asked Li to find a place to bury the baby tiger. Li then contacted Chen privately and decided to sell the tiger cub to Chen.

Chen paid Li 1,000 yuan($145) and hid the dead tiger in the basement freezer he rented. Chen then started to find buyers for the tiger cub and soon received a response.

Chen immediately contacted Hao and asked him to pack the dead tiger and mail it to the designated place. Following Chen's instruction, Hao packed the tiger cub and mail the package to a community in Xi'an. However, the package was sent to Liu by accident.

After identification, the dead tiger is found to belong to rare, endangered wild animals under the national key protection, and each of them is worth 1 million yuan. Two defendants were sentenced to five years in prison and fined 10,000 yuan and 2,000 yuan respectively, the court said in the first-instance verdict, which has taken effect now. Li, who initially sold the baby tiger to Chen, will be dealt with separately.