Traore also told of how he shipped chimpanzees without any Cites documentation at all - by hiding them amongst other less-protected animals. One of his videos demonstrated how to smuggle chimps in secret compartments.

'Abuse of permits'

Confronted with the BBC’s evidence, the secretary-general of Cites, John Scanlon, said that while he wasn’t shocked by the ease with which fraudulent permits for the export of baby chimps were purchased, he was “dismayed”.

Although he believed the permit system was “sound and secure” overall, he said there were instances, particularly in West and Central Africa, where there was “an abuse of permits”.

“There is corruption in the system,” he told the BBC. “We’ve brought it to the attention of our governments at a standing committee meeting several months ago. We said if we can’t get a handle on corruption, we are not going to stop illegal trade in wildlife.”

For this reason, Cites was pushing to introduce an electronic system of permissions that would be harder to fake, he explained.

“These things are not easy, but we are onto it, we are seeing it and we are doing our best.”

'Suspensions in place'

But, despite this, Mr Scanlon said he did not believe there was a surge in the illegal trade in great apes, including chimpanzees.

“If we did, I can assure you there would be a rush of attention to this issue and a rush of resources to stop it, but we are not seeing it,” he said.

He stressed that wherever the abuse of permits was observed, the governments of those countries implicated were warned and punished. There were about 30 trade suspensions currently in place, he confirmed.

Permits found as part of the BBC investigation