A 2021-2023 TRAFFIC investigation revealed an alarming prevalence of illegal wildlife trading online in Vietnam, identifying 22,497 posts advertising products derived from protected species including elephants, tigers, rhinos, pangolins, and endangered turtles. Despite national laws prohibiting such trade and carrying penalties of up to 15 years imprisonment, sellers operated openly across social media platforms, particularly Facebook and Zalo, using code words and emojis to evade detection algorithms. The investigation uncovered concerning trends, including the emergence of wildlife-derived "glues" containing mixtures of threatened species and the advertisement of 23 out of 26 native turtle species, many critically endangered. While Zalo's implementation of a community policy led to a decrease in advertisements on their platform, this merely shifted traffic to Facebook, highlighting the “whack-a-mole" nature of enforcement.