MCALLEN, Texas – A couple within the Rio Grande Valley was once arrested this week after attempting to sell a jaguar cub, federal officers stated.
Rafael Gutierrez-Galvan, 29, and his spouse Deyanira Garza, 28, are every dealing with fees of marketing secure natural world beneath the newly enacted Big Cat Public Safety Act, the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Southern District of Texas announced in a news release on Wednesday.
This is the primary case beneath the regulation, which was once signed via President Joe Biden in December 2022 and bounds the breeding, promoting and ownership of sure giant cats, together with jaguars.
Federal officers stated Gutierrez-Galvan and Garza have been in violation of that act after they tried to sell a jaguar cub to anyone that they had already offered a margay cub to.
The sale of the jaguar cub was once meant to happen on Tuesday, and Gutierrez-Galvan requested Garza to deliver a case of money from their house to the positioning, the news unencumber states.
Garza, then again, was once pulled over in a visitors forestall prior to she arrived on the location, and officials discovered the cash, the discharge provides.
Authorities stated in a prior transaction with that purchaser on Aug. 24, Gutierrez-Galvan offered a margay cub for $7,500.
Neither Gutierrez-Galvan nor Garza has a license to purchase, sell, business or shipping unique animals, the discharge states.
They have been taken into custody and made their first courtroom appearances on Wednesday. If convicted, they might face up to 5 years in federal jail and a imaginable high quality of up to $20,000.
Authorities stated each animals were recovered.
Fish and Wildlife Service and Homeland Security Investigations investigated the case with assist from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Houston and San Antonio zoos.
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