In 2016, Colombian police busted the country’s largest wildlife trafficking organisation at the time, which made an estimated $80-140 million USD each month. According to police, the gang used codewords for different species, and paid farmers to go into animals’ natural habitats to capture them. 90% of the species trafficked by the group were endangered, including parrots, parakeets, turtles, macaws, flamingos, toucans, capybaras, and others. The animals were typically drugged and transported to collection centres in the homes of small traders. For some bird species such as toucans and macaws, buyers were paying between $4-600,000 USD. When the authorities discovered the organisation’s operations, they found that birds were stuffed into soda bottles or sedated and attached to traffickers’ bodies.