Officials: LI groups help save dogs marked for death in Mexico
Southampton Animal Shelter Foundation Executive Director Patricia Deshong with Tito, left, and Layla, two of the eight dogs from Mexico sent to Long Island animal rescue facilities. Credit: Reece T. Williams
Three Long Island animal shelters are part of an ad hoc group of East Coast rescue organizations that have saved the lives of 20 dogs allegedly marked for death by Mexican drug gangs in an extortion scheme, East End officials involved in the effort told Newsday.
Eight of the so-called “cartel dogs” are in the care of animal shelters in Calverton, Hampton Bays and Westhampton — Long Island's contribution to a rescue effort that began in mid-March, according to former Assistant U.S. Attorney Bonnie S. Klapper, of Sag Harbor, who is active in animal welfare activities.
The dogs come from a small animal rescue facility in the Mexican state of Yucatan, whose owner had become the object of an extortion threat, Klapper said in an interview with Newsday.
Narcotics gangs operating in the area of Tulum and Cancun — resort towns on the Yucatan peninsula — had threatened to kill the dogs if they didn’t receive the shakedown payments, said Klapper, who as an Eastern District of New York prosecutor handled a number of cartel-related drug cases.
Known as “Rivera Maya,” the strip of sandy beaches on Yucatan's Caribbean coastline has become a major vacation spot, but since this past winter, also the site of a number of drug killings — including of two tourists — and extortion attempts by the cartel gangs, according to news reports.
After speaking with the founder of the animal rescue facility in Mexico, Klapper said, she called Patricia Deshong, the executive director of the Southampton Animal Shelter Foundation in Hampton Bays for help. Deshong said she then pulled the rescue operation together in three days.
“After I got the call from Bonnie, there was no way I was going to say ‘no,’ seeing how dire the situation was,” said Deshong in an interview with Newsday. “I had to find a way to help and knew how to get to the right people to make this happen.”
Officials with a nonprofit in the United States that they did want identified out of safety concerns, helped with organizing a flight for the dogs out of Mexico, securing needed import permits and licenses, as well as locating facilities for the animals in the U.S., according to members of the group and Deshong.
The dogs first arrived in Fort Meyers, Florida, before being taken to a kennel in Tennessee run by the Animal Rescue Corp., where the animals were given veterinary care and allowed to rest from the ordeal, said Michael Cunningham, a spokesman for the Lebanon, Tennessee-based nonprofit.
In a statement, Tim Wood, executive director of Animal Rescue Corp. said: “The lives of these wonderful animals depended on this relocation, we’re glad to be that safe space for them to land and then begin the next chapter of their lives."
Since arriving in Hampton Bays, the dogs have been walked four times a day and also kept in areas of the shelter designated for dog socializing, said Deshong, adding that all have been neutered.
“They are sweet dogs,” she said.
On a recent weekend, former NYPD Commissioner William Bratton, after learning of the dogs' arrival, showed up and asked to walk a couple of them at the facility, Deshong said.
Trainers have been observing and assessing the animals, who are all 4 years old or younger, to see how well they will adapt to lives with families, particularly those with children, before they are put up for adoption, she said.
Four of the rescued canines went to the Southampton Animal Shelter Foundation, two to Bideawee, a pet adoption facility in Westhampton, and two more to the Kent Animal Shelter in Calverton, Deshong said.
The two dogs taken to Bideawee were transferred to the facility's Manhattan location and one has since been adopted, an official with the group said.
The total cost of the operation to remove the dogs came to more than $40,000, largely financed by the U.S. foundation, officials said.
For Deshong, the live-saving endeavor has been the biggest moment in her life as animal rescuer.
She said the animals are mainly mixed breeds and will eventually be put up for adoption. With one of the dogs described as a tracker, an initial assessment by an expert indicated the pooch might have potential as a drug dog sniffer for law enforcement, something that would be a pleasant and ironic twist to the story, Deshong said.
“I am relieved and to me it was the highlight of years of doing rescue,” she said.
Anthony M. DeStefano has been a reporter for Newsday since 1986 and covers law enforcement, criminal justice and legal affairs from its New York City offices.
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