A Mexican cocaine cartel fled leaving their drug lord’s Bengal tiger in the back of a pickup truck after a ferocious gun battle with troops.
An army anti-drugs unit could not believe their luck when they saw a convoy of trucks in Culiacan in Sinaloa, the north Mexico capital of the cocaine industry.
Because in the back of one of them was a huge tethered tiger, virtually the calling card of the narco lifestyle.
Mexico’s most notorious druglord El Chapo had his own private zoo of lions while others love to show off their big cats on Instagram.
Video footage taken after the 3rd April gun battle by a passerby in their car shows one badly shot up vehicle plus a pickup truck with the tiger in the back.
As the car drives past the tiger looks out as it sits in the back looking untroubled by the shoot-out.
The drugs gang abandoned their vehicle, guns, ammunition and the tiger as they fled on foot.
A government spokesman confirmed that a unit of the National Guard and the Mexican Army were in the area when they spotted the three trucks.
After a brief chase, in which shots were fired by the military, the gang abandoned the vehicles and fled into a forest.
All three vehicles, the guns and the tiger were taken into custody.
The tiger ended up at Culiacan Zoo and was then transported to the nearby Ostok animal shelter.
It is not sure which drug lord the tiger belonged to, but staff from the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (Profepa) said it is a juvenile aged between 11 and 12 months and in good health.
It was also apparently used for human company and was not aggressive.
The Sinaloa Cartel – formerly ruled by El Chapo – is often reported to be the largest drug-trafficking crime network in the world.
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Story By: Michael Leidig, Sub-Editor: Marija Stojkoska, Agency: Central European News
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