Duncan Hewitt reports on the seizure

The gang, which involved hundreds of people, was caught when officials inspected mailbags in Ruili on the border with Burma, according to the Chinese news agency.

Bear skins and almost half a ton of cobra and viper skins were seized in what the authorities described as the biggest discovery of animal part smuggling in 50 years.

A single tiger can be worth a small fortune

Inspectors traced the consignment to a house where they discovered 575 python skins, along with elephant tusks, monkey skulls, the skins of 11 Chinese tigers and a number of leopards, and the skins of 575 pythons.

Officials said they were all packed up and ready to be posted.

The gang is believed to have sent around 5,000 animal skins by this method to avoid border checks.

The Chinese authorities say the find is a major success in their campaign to protect endangered species against an illegal trade that is proving hard to stamp out.

Huge profits

According to the BBC's Duncan Hewitt in Beijing, the illegal trade is still going strong, fuelled by huge profits from furs and the animal parts used in traditional Asian medicine.

Demand for Chinese medicines is fuelling the trade

The seizure is a reminder of the scale of the problem, with many of the animals involved on the country's number one protected list.

There are now thought to be less than 100 Chinese tigers left in the wild and Yunan province where the find was made has launched campaigns to save rare species including the Golden Monkey.