The government is planning to double prison sentences for people convicted of trading in endangered animals and animal products.

The move comes against a backdrop of growing concern about organised crime networks in the trafficking of rare and valuable species.

Organised crime gangs often use the same routes to trade in drugs, guns and increasingly products which come from endangered animals, BBC crime correspondent Neil Bennett reports.

The Russian mafia, for example, are said to control 90% of the trade in caviar, most of which comes from sturgeon in the Caspian Sea.

Airport haul

Some species are facing extinction because of fishing and there are international restrictions on how much can be imported and exported.

But 530kg of smuggled caviar was seized at Heathrow airport alone last year.

Just 1kg of best Beluga can fetch �3,000.

The government has started consultations with a view to double jail time for people caught smuggling endangered species and products into the UK.

Bush meat

Last March, the government drew up an action plan to try to tackle the amount of wild animal meat being brought into the country.

The �1bn-a-year trade in "bush meat" is also run by criminal gangs operating from east and west Africa.

The imports have allegedly included bush rat, bat, monkey and antelope.

Illegal imports are thought to be the likely cause of the foot and mouth epidemic which hit Britain in 2001.