The Federal Government’s Negligence in Combating Staged Animal Fighting and Trafficking of Fighting Animal

There are a thousand good reasons for Congress to pass the Fighting Inhumane Gambling and High-Risk Trafficking (FIGHT) Act — a bill with four core provisions to enhance enforcement of our national law against cockfighting and dogfighting.

Here are three more: racing jockeys José Ortiz and his brother Irad Ortiz Jr. and their cockfighting compatriot, Los Angeles Dodgers relief pitcher Edwin Díaz.

The Ortiz brothers are among the most recognizable athletes in American horse racing — jockeys who went No. 1 and No. 2 on their mounts at this year’s Kentucky Derby. Edwin Díaz is one of the best-known relievers in baseball, with a $69 million contract.

Yet a recent USA Today investigation detailed allegations tying all three men to illegal cockfights in Puerto Rico. The exposé included video showing the Ortiz brothers at the center of the action at a cockfighting arena, holding wads of cash.

These men participated in staged fights with animals who had knives affixed to their legs to enhance the bloodletting. Generally speaking, cockfighting derbies — with arena-style seating at the biggest venues — are high-stakes gambling meccas where illegal wagering and money laundering are comingled with the staged animal combat.

Do the Thoroughbred racing industry and Major League Baseball think it’s okay for their athletes to engage in illegal gambling when many of these cockfighting enterprises are engaged in money laundering and tied to organized crime?

Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy have called on the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA), the U.S. Department of Justice, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and other authorities to investigate the allegations and to take appropriate action. We have also urged horse racing authorities and Major League Baseball to establish clear standards barring participation in organized animal fighting ventures.

The Department of Justice’s Failure to Enforce Our Nation’s Anti-Cruelty Laws

But this controversy is about far more than these three celebrity athletes. Animal fighting clubs in Puerto Rico sued the federal government to enjoin enforcement of the 2018 law forbidding cockfighting in Puerto Rico.

Two federal courts rejected their claims, establishing without a doubt that the United States has the authority to outlaw all forms of animal fighting in Puerto Rico and on every other inch of U.S. soil. You can read our attorneys’ legal analysis of the case law, with Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy participating as friends of the courts in all of these legal proceedings.

The athletes’ apparent contempt for the law also exposes the staggering failure of federal law enforcement to take action on such savage spectacles of animal cruelty.

Congress has upgraded the federal law against animal fighting five times in the 21st century — with these serial improvements in the law signaling to the Department of Justice that the American people want law enforcement to take animal cruelty seriously. This latest upgrade of the law came at the urging of Animal Wellness Action in 2018, and it involved extending the federal ban on cockfighting and dogfighting to all the U.S. territories, from the U.S. Virgin Islands to the Northern Mariana Islands.

Yet since that landmark law took effect, there has not been a single known federal enforcement action targeting cockfighting operations in Puerto Rico or any other U.S. territory.

Not one.

As long ago as 2002, Congress also banned the interstate shipment of fighting birds and specifically outlawed the use of the U.S. Postal Service to transport roosters through the mail for fighting purposes.

Every year, Animal Wellness Action and our partners at Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK) have identified tens of thousands of fighting roosters shipped by U.S. mail.

Can you guess how many cases of animal trafficking have been interdicted in the 25 years since these proscriptions were enshrined in law?

Zero.

Can you guess how many arrests have been made under this law against animal trafficking?

Zero.

And that’s not all.

Federal law also prohibits the trafficking of fighting birds from the United States to foreign countries like Mexico, the Philippines, and dozens of others where cockfighting remains entrenched.

Yet there has not been a single major federal crackdown on the airline trafficking pipeline that exports American-bred fighting birds around the globe.

Not one.

This is pitiful enforcement and a shameful dereliction of duty.

So, Americans have every right to ask: Does the rule of law matter, or is it just optional when it comes to animals and vicious acts of cruelty against them?

The answer should be obvious. These are violent crimes, often organized by cartels and gangs involved in other felonies like drug trafficking, money laundering, and murder. These are some of the most outrageous cluster crimes that happen in our nation, yet when it comes to cases that involve animal abuse, our Department of Justice is absent.

Cockfighting is Tied to Organized Crime

The largest mass shooting in Hawaii’s history occurred at a cockfight in 2023. There was a double homicide tied to a dogfight in Mississippi that same year. Earlier this year, a twice-convicted cockfighter in Tennessee was accused in a triple homicide case.

In Mexico, U.S.-bred fighting birds are flown into cockfighting circuits controlled by criminal cartels. There are mass shootings at these events, with 20 people shot and killed in 2022 at one event in Zinapécuaro, Michoacán, Mexico. Sixteen were killed at another cockfight in 2024 in Guerrero. In the Philippines, organized crime syndicates dominate major cockfighting operations, where corruption, violence, and even mass disappearances have been linked to the industry. There have been 100 people murdered in the Philippines in recent years, tied directly to disputes over cockfighting. U.S. cockfighters are the biggest outside suppliers of the fighting birds to the Philippines. This is not folklore.

It is also a transnational biosecurity threat.

More than a decade ago, one USDA researcher estimated there may be as many as 24 million fighting game fowl in the United States, spread across roughly 150,000 backyard cockfighting operations. These clandestine trafficking networks move birds constantly across state lines and international borders, often with no veterinary oversight, no disease controls, and no traceability.

That makes cockfighting a perfect vector for the spread of avian influenza and other dangerous infectious diseases.

As the nation has struggled through devastating outbreaks of bird flu — outbreaks that have forced the destruction of millions of commercial egg-laying hens and contributed to rising egg prices for American consumers — federal authorities have largely ignored one of the highest-risk sectors for disease transmission: game fowl trafficking.

The commercial poultry industry understands this threat clearly. So do veterinarians, epidemiologists, and agricultural authorities.

That is one reason the FIGHT Act has amassed support from more than 1,100 organizations, agencies, and stakeholders across the country.

The endorsers include the National Sheriffs’ Association, the National District Attorneys Association, Major County Sheriffs of America, the Small and Rural Law Enforcement Executives Association, the American Gaming Association, the North Central Poultry Association, Rose Acre Farms, Vital Farms, and poultry organizations from dozens of states.

State sheriffs’ associations and district attorneys’ associations from across America have endorsed the legislation because local law enforcement is on the front lines against the violence, trafficking, gambling, and corruption tied to animal fights.

America’s state and local law enforcement community understands the danger here even if some federal authorities seem determined to look away.

Congress Should Again Spur the DOJ to Act on Staged Animal Violence

It is time for the U.S. Senate to pass the bipartisan FIGHT Act, led by Sens. John Kennedy and Cory Booker and cosponsored by a raft of their colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

The legislation would strengthen enforcement by:

• Cracking down on money laundering through online bets on animal fights;
  
  
• Stopping the smuggling of roosters through the U.S. mail;
  
  
• Enhancing criminal penalties for convicted offenders; and
  
  
• Allowing law-abiding citizens their day in court when authorities are too slow to act on reported animal fighting.

But Congress must also pass the Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act to establish a dedicated corps of federal prosecutors focused specifically on animal cruelty crimes.

For too long, organized animal cruelty enterprises have operated with near-total impunity because enforcement responsibility is fragmented and inconsistent.

Please write to your U.S. senators and your U.S. representative in favor of the Animal Cruelty Enforcement (ACE) Act (H.R. 1477 in the House).