Miami-Dade police discovered a cockfighting ring in a rural area in the northwest corner of the county last Sunday.
As a result of this operation, a southwest Miami-Dade woman was arrested and charged with attending an animal fighting event,reported the news channelLocal 10.
Last Sunday, a Miami-Dade Police Department homicide detective summoned another officer to 18180 NW 129th Ave., a rural property located along a dirt road just south of the Broward County line.
This detective led the investigating officer to several roosters in cages with shaved feathers, a large cockfighting ring containing chairs, and an outside viewing platform, all within a makeshift shelter.
“Within the cockfighting ring, I observed dried blood, as well as cockfighting paraphernalia, such as spurs and scales, in the vicinity of the ring,” the officer explained.
The detained woman responds to the name of Elsa Sastureias, 57, identified as a “waitress” at the property who works for tips.
Sastureias claimed that she was a friend of the owner of the property, but that he does not employ her or pay her.
The woman was taken to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, where she was being held on $1,000 bail.
Police allegedly obtained a confession from the woman. No other arrests linked to the case have been disclosed.
At the end of last December, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigating a possible kidnapping in southwest Miami-Dade ended up arrestinga man who operated a large cockfighting ring in his home.
The subject, identified as Leonardo Cabrera, 59, was arrested after a police raid on his property, located at 24000 Southwest 123rd Avenue, in a semi-rural part of the Princeton community, in Homestead.
At the scene, the agents discovered facilities for holding cockfights, including a ring, as well as paraphernalia common in this type of illegal events such as syringes and spurs.
Last June, Lázaro Agramonte, a 62-year-old man of Cuban origin, appeared in Miami-Dade court accused oforganizing cockfights and marijuana possession.
At the time of Agramonte's arrest, fighting cocks and paraphernalia common in this type of activity, as well as five pounds of marijuana, were confiscated, also in Homestead.
In April, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, a 47-year-old Cuban, was also arrested after the Kendall general investigations unit in Miami-Dade executed a search warrant at his residence, whereThey found about a hundred roosters.
In that case, the accused faced several charges of animal cruelty, since on his property the authorities found, in addition to the hundred roosters - some of them dead - two training rings for bird fighting, as well as medications, syringes and spurs.
Cockfighting is illegal in all American states and Florida is one of the 42 territories in the United States where it is considered a serious crime.
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