From the newsroom of the Washington Post

It's Robert Samuels from the Washington Post

Post is Sarah Kaplan

Hi, this is Elaheiz Adi with the Washington Post

This is Post Reports. I am Martine Powers

It's Thursday, May 9th

Today, the man risking his life to expose the illegal tiger trade

What it means to be electable and a florist trying to save orchids from their owners

Here I am walking through the Dumsau Market

This is the market that's kind of a no man's land on the corner of Thailand and Laos

The number of tigers in the wild has plunged over the last century

So from around 100,000 to fewer than 4,000 today

Meanwhile, the numbers and captivity have exploded to more than 12,500

So you're talking about there are more than three times the number of tigers in captivity today

than are in the wild

And that stirred a question to us, how did this happen?

Over the course of the last year, Teri McCoy has been trying to answer that question

And that brought him to Laos in search of 300 missing tigers

As you walk through here, you see a lot of different wines, shoes and backpacks

And also see a place that's called exotic family

An exotic family has a lot of different jewelry out

But as soon as they're talking to them, they start bringing out what they really is the exotic elements

...