By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Police in Mexico on Saturday announced the seizure of a huge collection of exotic animals including 10 tigers, six jaguars, five lions and other species in a town dominated by cartel.
The seizure comes barely a week after US prosecutors revealed that a boss of the Sinaloa cartel fed his enemies, alive and dead, to tigers he had allegedly kept illegally.
The discovery was made in the western state of Jalisco, a stronghold of a cartel of the same name.
Authorities did not identify the owner of the land where the animals were found, but the township of La Barca, Jalisco has been the scene of mass graves and cartel executions in the past, AP says in a report.
The seizure came a week after US prosecutors revealed grisly details about how some drug lords use tigers.
In 2013, at least 65 bodies were exhumed from shallow graves around La Barca, which is located near the neighboring state of Michoacan.
“While many of these victims were shot, others were fed dead or alive to tigers kept by Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar and Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, the defendants, who raised and kept the tigers as their pets,” according to an indictment unsealed April 14 in the New York Southern District against the Sinaloa cartel and its associates.
The brothers, Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar and Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar are sons of the imprisoned drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
Both, long with 23 associates named in the indictment are the defendants.
The seized animals are to be taken to private or public zoos or reserves where they can receive proper attention, in line with the extant laws in Mexico.
