Baby jaguar trafficked by drug dealers after adult star sold it for thousands

A jaguar cub named Amador was passed between drug dealers and an OnlyFans model before finally being rescued and taken to safety.

The cub’s story begins with Trisha Meyer, a self-described exotic pet dealer from Texas, who went by the name ‘Texas Zookeeper’ online. Meyer had a history of trafficking wild animals and used her Instagram account, ‘Mimiseroticworld’, to flaunt her exotic pets including tigers, monkeys, and foxes.

One of her more controversial posts included Amador, who first appeared on her social media at just 14 days old. Her Instagram posts have now been toned down and she’s changed her name to ‘mimisexoticworld’.

READ MORE: Model on mission to bonk 100s of UK freshers takes time out to sleep with their dads

There’s lots of quality news coming out of the US.

In April 2021, Meyer sold the cub to California-based marijuana dealer Abdul Rahman, known as Mannie. Rahman paid $25,000 for the jaguar and an extra $1,000 for it to be illegally transported across state lines to his home in Murrieta, California. Transporting the animal out of Texas was illegal under federal law.

Rahman, however, was taken in by the cub’s charm. “All I knew was the jaguar was cute, and I had the money, and I wanted it,” Rahman said, admitting he hadn’t thought through the consequences.

Meyer had initially used Amador in various ways to make money before selling him. She had previously rented out a hotel room in Austin and charged $1,000 an hour for people to take photos and cuddle with the cub. On her OnlyFans account, she even posted images of Amador resting between her breasts, exploiting the exotic animal to her followers, reports LATimes.

However, the challenges of raising a wild animal soon caught up with Rahman. Keeping Amador, who was renamed Hades, in a five-bedroom house was not sustainable. He quickly realised the difficulty in caring for a growing jaguar and soon after decided to sell the cub for $20,000. According to federal fish and wildlife investigators, the new owner had a pregnant partner and soon recognised the dangers of keeping a jaguar in a home with a newborn child.

The cub’s situation caught the attention of Bobbi Brink, founder of Lions Tigers & Bears Sanctuary in San Diego County. Brink had been tipped off about a jaguar in Riverside County, and her team worked with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to track the cub.

In September 2021, after growing concerns about the jaguar’s presence in a domestic setting, the cub was abandoned in a dog kennel at Brink’s sanctuary. Brink remembers finding the animal in poor condition – malnourished, covered in faeces and shaking with fear. The sanctuary team named him Eddie, after the construction worker who discovered him at their gates.

The case against Meyer and Rahman escalated quickly. Meyer had a history of animal trafficking, with previous accusations of selling exotic animals, including giraffes and Savannah kittens.

She had also been arrested in 2016 for child endangerment after authorities discovered her teenage daughter interacting with tiger cubs in their Houston backyard. Meyer was also accused of failing to deliver animals after taking payments, a pattern seen with her sale of a giraffe and several exotic cats.

Meyer’s attorney Penny Wymyczak-White previously claimed Meyer always complied with the law, saying: “She’s going to comply with the law to a T.” However, Meyer’s record showed otherwise as she continued to accumulate complaints and arrests related to animal trafficking, including selling sick or dying exotic animals to unsuspecting buyers.

Abdul Rahman faced charges of wildlife trafficking and was sentenced to one year of probation in July 2023. He was also ordered to pay $30,000 in restitution to the Lions Tigers & Bears Sanctuary. Meyer pleaded guilty to trafficking endangered species in June 2023 and is set to be sentenced in the coming months. She could face up to five years in prison.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special agent Ed Newcomer, who led the investigation, noted the disturbing trend of people trafficking wild animals under the guise of being “animal lovers”. He said: “When you arrest these people, and they end up in front of a judge, they tell the judge, ‘I’m an animal lover. I just got a little carried away.’ And nothing pisses me off more.

“They are not animal lovers. They are either in it for the money or for the obsession of collecting and owning and having and controlling.”

Eddie the jaguar, once passed around by traffickers and neglected in a series of unsafe homes, is now in a safe environment, recovering at the Lions Tigers & Bears Sanctuary.

For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.

This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.