Mexican police have seized 25 exotic animals including 10 tigers, six jaguars, five lions and other species like pumas in a cartel-dominated town.
The raid occurred after a week that the United States prosecutors revealed that a boss of the Sinaloa cartel fed his enemies, alive and dead, to tigers he kept, CBS reported.
They also discovered pumps believed to have been used to steal petrol from fuel pipelines.
Authorities did not disclose the owner of the land where the animals were kept. But the township of La Barca, Jalisco, has been the scene of mass graves and cartel executions in the past.
Agents also found antelopes, a llama, deer and birds at the property. The animals appear to have been kept in pens, stalls and cages over a wide area, CBS said.
In 2013, at least 65 bodies were exhumed from covert burial pits around La Barca, which is located near the neighbouring state of Michoacan.
In most cases in Mexico, seized animals are taken to private or public zoos or reserves where they can receive the proper attention.
“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, sons of imprisoned drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, are the lead defendants among 23 associates named in the indictment.