A Deptford trader who sold sex pills made from seahorses for Viagra-style effects has been penalised by magistrates.

Keen-eyed Detective Constable Louise Morris, of the Met’s Wildlife Crime Unit, was walking through the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre on her way to work last year when she spotted 46-year-old Mongolian national Lu Yao’s stall and some suspcious products for sale.

The following month DC Collins and her colleagues raided Yao’s Deptford High Street shop and stall, seizing 100 pills.

Ingredients of the products were translated from Chinese and it was discovered that the pills contained extracts of seahorse, which is protected under the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES).

Yao was summonsed to appear at Bromley Magistrates’ Court on September 2, where she pleaded guilty to five counts of purchasing or offering to purchase, sell or keep for sale species protected under CITES.

She was handed a £200 fine for each product, £85 prosecution costs and a £100 victim surcharge – a total of £1,185.

Source: News Shopper

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