Report: Police believe trafficking network is hiding missing Houston tiger
HOUSTON - Police believe a tiger that got loose in a Texas neighborhood—and then vanished—has been handed off person-to-person possibly a dozen times in the past four days in an attempt to keep it out of the hands of law enforcement.
The tiger, named India, has been unaccounted for since Victor Cuevas, 26, picked it up from a residential area in Houston Sunday night. Cuevas was arrested Monday, but the tiger was nowhere to be found.
The Houston Chronicle reports that officers now suspect the 9-month-old tiger is being passed around by a network of exotic animal traffickers. A commander with the Houston Police Department told the Chronicle that India may have been handed off about a dozen times since officers saw it taken away in the back of a Jeep Cherokee.
“We’ve talked to the players,” Ron Borza, head of HPD’s Major Offenders, told the newspaper. “It’s very hard to hide an animal of that size.”
Investigators say they've seen other instances of exotic animals like bear cubs vanishing under similar circumstances in the past year.
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Cuevas, through his lawyer, has denied being the tiger's owner and said he too is looking for the animal.