The Spanish National Police said on Wednesday that they had arrested 13 people and rescued over 400 animals, mostly dogs and cats, as part of an operation that smashed an international pet trafficking ring.
The gang is suspected of illegally importing animals from eastern Europe in small, poorly ventilated vehicles over distances of more than 2,000 km, police said in a statement.
It said the unsanitary conditions caused some of the animals to develop infectious diseases. Some died from mistreatment.
The authorities suspect the gang forged documents to misrepresent sick animals as being healthy when they were sold.
Police began their investigation at the end of 2020 after they received several complaints about the unsanitary conditions at a pet shop in the centre of Barcelona.
The police then rescued 33 sick dogs and found that the animals’ documents ‘had obvious anomalies’, which led them to investigate where the pets came from.
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