The Spanish police say they rescued 19 exotic felines from a home on the island of Majorca that were bound for sale on the growing illegal world market for big cats, and they arrested the Russian couple who owned them.
With demand for large felines like lions and tigers high in some quarters — some consider them a status symbol — there is a brisk business for criminal rings that traffic in them, even if the animals are protected or endangered species.
In a statement Monday announcing the arrests, the Spanish authorities said the two suspects were tied to a smuggling ring that works on multiple continents. “The detainees sold various animal species internationally through internet portals, including white tigers, black leopards, hyenas, and pumas,” they said.
When the police raided their home, they said, they found a caracal — a cat notable for its elongated ears — and two servals, as well as 16 hybrids. International travel documents from Russia, Belarus and China for more than 40 others animals were also discovered, the police said.
“The operation has uncovered a global criminal organization involving breeders, transporters, and veterinarians,” they said.
While much of the exotic pet trade worldwide is legal, a spike in demand attributed in great part to the popularity of unusual companion animals on social media over the past decade has led to an increase in illegal trafficking. That in turn has contributed to the depletion of populations in the wild, conservationists say.
The demand for big cats has risen even as regulations to protect them have increasingly been put in place. In the Persian Gulf, exotic pets are now a must-have accessory for many of the wealthy. Some may have been inspired by images of Dubai’s crown prince, Hamdan bin Mohammed al-Maktoum, with his pet lion, Moochi.
In the Balkans, too, big cats have become popular as influencers post photos of their felines on social media. And big-cat trafficking has become big business in South Africa, where conservationists say criminal networks take advantage of fragmented regulations.
The illegal wildlife trade takes in about a $20 billion global business annually, according to Interpol, and it is intertwined with other criminal activity. In February, the international policing organization said that nearly 20,000 animals, all endangered or protected species, had been rescued in a global operation with the World Customs Organization. Among them were 18 big cats.
A 2024 United Nations report on wildlife crime said that “organized crime is evident in various specialized wildlife trafficking roles, such as export, import, brokering, storage, keeping and breeding live specimens or handling the interface with processors.”
The Spanish authorities said that the big cats peddled by the suspects they arrested were likely smuggled into Europe from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Because animal trafficking is an international affair, conservationists say that curbing the illegal wildlife trade requires a unified global approach to enforcement and regulation.
The United States in 2022 passed the Big Cat Public Safety Act, which placed restrictions on the breeding, sale and private ownership of some exotic felines, including lions, tigers, leopards, snow leopards, jaguars, cougars, clouded leopards and cheetahs. A 2020 Netflix documentary about a man who ran an exotic animal park in Oklahoma, “Tiger King, helped fuel passage of the law.
Because animal trafficking is an international affair, conservationists say that curbing it requires a unified global approach.
Since 1975, a multilateral agreement called the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, has been in effect, but with only limited success. The pact “was never intended to address wildlife trafficking as a serious transnational crime,” said Dr. Meganne Natali, a legal consultant specializing in wildlife crime and conservation.
“Efforts to combat wildlife trafficking call for a decisive shift toward harmonized and dissuasive criminal sanctions at the international level,” Dr. Natali said.