The wild cats had been sedated by the animal smugglers but awoke after the police raid and started chewing up the seats and interior of the car that the traffickers had used to take the tigers to a client in the capital.

Officers from the Hanoi Environmental Police had to knock the 50-kilogramme carnivores out again with drugs to take them to a wild animal rescue centre after the bust Monday evening, state media said.

When they searched the traffickers' homes on the outskirts of Hanoi, police found four more tigers cut up in a freezer, seven live bears and bear parts, rhinoceros horns and elephant tusks, the An Ninh Thu Do newspaper said.

Two people were detained by police, reports said.

One of them told police that he had in the past bought two tiger carcasses from Hanoi's Thu Le Zoo, the Thanh Nien daily reported.

Vietnam, where poachers have decimated wildlife in most forests, is a major trafficking hub for the illegal trade, linking supplier countries such as Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar with consumers in China and other countries.