The illegal ivory trade gangs are currently exploiting loopholes in the Thai law. Thailand's 2,500 or so domestic elephants are listed as transport animals, and it is legal for the owner to cut off their tusks and sell the ivory.

Wild elephants in Thailand, of which only a mere 1,500 are left, are protected. But very few of them still have tusks. There have been cases reported of ivory gangs cutting the tusks so close to the root that the elephants have eventually bled to death

Retailers and touts in Bangkok and other tourist areas usually encourage tourists to buy ivory, saying it is legal to buy ivory in Thailand, even it is not. Technically, a tourist buying an ivory item in Thailand and trying to take it out of the country can be imprisoned for 4 years.

Retailers also falsely claim that all the ivory items sold in Thailand comes from the tusks of domestic Thai elephants, where the amount of ivory ornaments on sale in Thailand far exceeds the potential yield from the tusks of domestic Thai elephants.

Therefore, much of the ivory comes from wild elephants from which the tusks have been illegally removed plus huge quantities of ivory illegally imported from elsewhere in Asia with the bulk smuggled from African countries.

This illegal imported ivory first arrives at underground carving centers in the Nakhon Sawan district near Bangkok in Thailand, where they are turned into souvenirs and then shipped out as ivory from domestic Thai elephants to countries such as Japan, China and Korea, where ivory trinkets are still very much in demand.

A survey in the month October 2003 revealed 5,355 pieces of ivory ornaments worth 11.6 million baht (US$ 300,000) on sale in the shops of Bangkok upscale hotel alone, and 13,612 pieces of ivory with a value of 78.6 million baht (US$ 2.000,000) on sale in shops outside the hotels in Bangkok.