DEA officials bust “largest ever” cockfighting arena
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Drug Enforcement Administration officials investigating a Mexican drug trafficking ring called the Gulf Cartel found more than they bargained for: a massive cockfighting enterprise that may be the largest ever discovered in the United States.
Eleven people were arrested in Nashville as part of ‘Project Reckoning, Phase II,’ with 31 other arrests in Texas, Mississippi, Nevada, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Oklahoma. (Phase I of the project ‘led to the seizure of $60 million in drugs, and 175 arrests,’ the DEA said.)
No word on what will become of the seized roosters, but a life in the ring usually doesn’t end well for the birds, according to PETA:
Roosters who are rescued from game farms or cockfights are typically euthanized because, as one official explained, ‘[T]he only thing they’ve been trained to do is fight other roosters.... Euthanasia means a humane death — it’s not the barbaric, brutal activity inside the pit that they’re being raised for.’
The Gulf Cartel is responsible for supplying ‘multi-ton quantities of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana from Colombia, Guatemala, Panama and Mexico to the United States, as well as the distribution of those narcotics within the United States,’ according to the DEA.
--Lindsay Barnett