A London-based environmental group accuses the Vietnamese military of playing a key role in the illicit lumber trade between Vietnam and Laos.

The Environmental Investigation Agency says in a report Thursday that its agents posed as buyers of illegal timber during undercover operations in 2010 and 2011. It says the group discovered that one of the biggest loggers in Laos, the Vietnamese Company of Economic Cooperation, is controlled by the Vietnamese military.

The group said it learned that the company has been engaged in the logging business in Laos for more than 20 years and that it sources most of its logs from dam clearance sites.

Laos has some of the last intact tropical forests in the Mekong region, but EIA says a ban on the export of raw timber from the country is poorly enforced and widely flouted.

The Environmental Investigation Agency says on its website that it has been working undercover since 1984 to

expose international environmental crime such as the illegal trade in wildlife and illegal logging.

The group received an award in 2007 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which said the EIA has earned a reputation for highly effective and successful campaigning.