Peruvian police have seized more than 12.3 million dissected seahorses - a prized ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine - at the port of Callao in Lima on the west coast of the country. The police said on Wednesday that the seahorses were worth over US$6 million (S$8.3 million) and were found on board a local vessel bound for Asia. In Chinese medicine, the small marine fish is believed to play a large role in curing infertility and baldness, among a host of problems. Its strong popularity in countries such as China and Indonesia has caused its numbers to dwindle. According to Project Seahorse, a marine conservation organisation at the University of British Columbia in Canada, about 37 million seahorses are caught in the wild every year.