Authorities in Mexico discovered a large zoo belonging to the Gulf Cartel while carrying out a series of raids targeting the cartel’s fuel theft and smuggling operations.
The raids took place this week in five separate locations in the Tampico-Madero-Altamira metropolitan area. During the raids, authorities seized fuel-theft equipment and weapons; however, police also found a cartel zoo with 135 animals, including five Bengal tigers, three jaguars, two lions, 21 monkeys, and several other species, such as bison, ostriches, and various antelopes.
The animals were on a property that had been turned into a personal zoo, with some able to roam free while others were kept in cages. In another of the properties, authorities seized pumping equipment and storage tanks, as well as more than 60,000 liters of stolen diesel.
During the operation, authorities also arrested three individuals and seized several weapons.
Credit: SSPC Mexico
The properties are linked to the Gulf Cartel, one of the terrorist organizations that has a long history of controlling key parts of the border state of Tamaulipas. The raids come at a time when the U.S. government continues to pressure Mexico to crack down on drug cartels.
In recent years, terrorist organizations such as the Gulf Cartel and cartel Jalisco New Generation have been profiting largely from fuel theft and smuggling.
Credit: SSPC Mexico
As Breitbart Texas has reported, Mexico’s political elite and top Mexican Navy and Army officials have been implicated in cartel fuel smuggling operations. Most recently, Mexico extradited a naval vice-admiral in connection with a fuel smuggling operation in Altamira. Additionally, the sons of former Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador have been named in various news articles and by rival politicians as having allegedly helped protect and used their influence to coordinate the shipments of illegal fuel.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart News Foundation traveled to Mexico City and the states of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas, including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas, if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and their original Spanish. This article was written by “Francisco Morales” from Tamaulipas.
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