Alligator, Drugs, Cash And Guns — But No Tiger — Seized In NM Raid

ALBUQUERQUE, NM — Wildlife authorities in New Mexico said they found an alligator and large amounts of drugs, guns and cash when they executed search warrants in Albuquerque, but the quarry they were looking for — a tiger — was nowhere to be found.

That was in August. A month later, investigators with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish are still looking for the missing tiger, believed to be less than a year old and weighing between 30 and 60 pounds, the agency said in a news release Saturday.

Investigators believe the tiger is being kept in a private home, either in New Mexico or a nearby state. It’s illegal to keep tigers as pets under New Mexico’s wild or exotic animals law. It defines affected species as those protected under federal law and considered to be “wild, fierce, dangerous, venomous, noxious or naturally inclined to do harm.”

The 3-foot alligator the New Mexico investigators discovered while serving the warrant on Aug. 12 is among the defined species, and it has been turned over to the Albuquerque BioPark.

The largest of the big cats, tigers, which can grow to more than 600 pounds, are rivaled only by the lion in strength and ferocity, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.

Officers from New Mexico Game and Fish, assisted by Albuquerque city and state police, served the warrant on Aug. 12, they were expecting to find a tiger in the home of 26-year-old Carlos Giddings, according to a news release from the Albuquerque Police Department.

When authorities didn’t find the tiger, they obtained a second warrant to search the home for drugs, news station KRQE reported, citing a criminal complaint. Between the two residences searched, authorities said they seized 10.5 pounds of cocaine, two pounds of heroin, 49 pounds of marijuana, 197 cannabis oil packs, three scales, and fentanyl and Xanax pills.

Authorities also took possession of $41,835 in cash and three weapons — an AK-47 rifle, an AR-15 rifle and a FN57 pistol.

Giddings was arrested on drug trafficking charges two weeks after his home was searched. A district court judge who ordered Giddings’ release pending trial warned him of “zero tolerance” for violations of the conditions of his release, which included contact with known gang members, the Albuquerque Journal reported.

Giddings told police he was storing the drugs for someone else, according to the criminal complaint seen by KRQE. Giddings also told police he didn’t have a tiger, Tom Clear, his attorney told the Journal.

The Game and Fish Department has asked anyone with information about the tiger to report it at 800-432-4263, or file an online report at the reward-based Operation Game Thief.

Not every state prohibits the ownership of big cats.

Alabama, Nevada, North Carolina, and Wisconsin have no restrictions on keeping any kind of wild or dangerous animal as a pet, and two others, Delaware and Oklahoma, don’t specifically prohibit private ownership of big cats, according to the Big Cat Rescue sanctuary based in Tampa, Florida.

Even though a majority of states prohibit private ownership of big cats, the practice is “epidemic.” That’s due in large part due to the popularity of roadside tourist traps that operate outside of Association of Zoos and Aquariums standards and other facilities such as those featured in the Netflix series “Tiger King,” which exposed the practices of “Joe Exotic,” the persona assumed by Joseph Maldanado-Passage, who is now serving 21 years in prison.

“More often than not, these large, dangerous, wide-roaming apex predators are kept in small, barren cages where they can barely turn around,” the Humane Society said on its website. “They are improperly fed, are not provided with appropriate veterinary care, and have no means to express their complex emotional and behavioral needs. Cubs are ripped away from their mothers to be offered to paying customers for feeding and petting sessions and for photo ops. Keeping big cats in these settings is not only inhumane but is also a serious public safety issue.”

The Humane Society is among organizations backing passage of the Big Cat Rescue Public Safety Act, which would ban private ownership of big cats and public events, such as “cub pettings,” that allow human-animal contact, passed the House this summer and is expected to clear the Senate.

Only about 4,500 tigers remain in the wild, according to the World Wildlife Federation. The United States plays a major role in the illegal tiger trade, according to research led by the University of Columbia and the Wild Tiger non-profit organization.

Though the researchers focused on trafficking patterns in 13 Asian countries, they discovered the United States was responsible for almost half of the global illegal tiger trade between 2003 and 2012.

Clear, Giddings’ attorney, told the Albuquerque Journal he’s not convinced there ever was a tiger.

“They apparently had some information that he had a tiger, but obviously the reliability of that information is suspect,” Clear said. “They did not find a tiger, but they found an alligator. You can’t make this stuff up.”