The Spanish Civil Guard on Monday said it had arrested two people in Mallorca over the alleged sale of exotic felines via the internet.
Police said the pair’s breeding of wildcats and hybrids on the Balearic island was only a small part of a global trade in protected species such as white tigers.
The Civil Guard in Valencia said officers had arrested two people of Russian origin in the Manacor municipality for wildlife crimes, smuggling, organized crime, and document falsification and that they were investigating another.
How many exotic cats did the Spanish police discover?
Police recovered a caracal, two servals, and sixteen felines of varying degrees of hybridization that they were illegally selling internationally through internet portals.
The detainees are a 48-year-old Russian man and a 46-year-old Russian woman. A 48-year-old Israeli man is also being investigated.
Operation Kotach began in March 2024 after information about two Russian citizens who had settled on a plot of land where they owned and bred servals, caracals and their hybrids with domestic cats.
The pair would subsequently list the animals for sale on popular social media platforms.
Patterns observed on social media showed the business was “extremely active,” and it was confirmed that people from various continents were involved, with significant demand for the animals.
The investigations revealed that the breeding of caracals and servals in Mallorca was the “tip of the iceberg” of an international network of other protected species such as white tigers.
The majority of the animals offered for sale came from Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine and were illegally brought into the European Union.
The investigations indicate that the animals entered the bloc through the Polish border with Belarus and, from there, were distributed after fraudulent documentation was issued.
It was a global criminal organization involving breeders, transporters, and veterinarians.
The criminals advertised the sale of white tigers, clouded leopards, boreal lynxes, hyenas, black leopards, and pumas on their social media accounts. It was found that the clouded leopard was being asked for at a price of €60,000 (around $68,000).
More than 40 animal passports from Russia, Belarus, and China were found in the searched home, as well as a large amount of computer equipment.
Attempts to breed and keep such cats as pets are widespread in Russia and Ukraine, and the trend has begun to be imitated in other countries by wealthy people seeking a status symbol.
However the animals require a lot of space and can be a danger, so they are often abandoned.
Police uncover profitable cat breeding scheme
While breeders have managed to hybridize wildcats with domestic cats, there are problems with sterility as well as the viability of the offspring because of premature births.
Both caracals and servals, in many cases, view domestic cats as prey rather than mating partners and even kill or seriously injure them.
The goal of hybridization is to obtain exclusive cats, but with the wild character of their parents toned down so that they can be domesticated.
While prices for a purebred caracal or serval can exceed €8,000, a first-generation hybrid can easily fetch up to €18,000.
The animals recovered showed varying degrees of survival, still to be determined by veterinary staff, and have been temporarily housed at a nearby zoo.
Edited by: Alex Berry
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