Malaga anti-poaching operation

The Guardia Civil in north Malaga have detained three people and charged another 20 in one of the biggest anti-poaching operations in recent years.

Five locations were searched including the workplace of an environmental councillor for the Junta de Andalucia who is one of the people charged.

Eighteen trophy heads, four stuffed mountain goat heads, one stuffed fallow deer head, one mountain sheep head, four stuffed wild boar heads and 17 illegal hunting traps were confiscated during the raids.

This police operation has dismantled one of the most extensive poaching networks in Andalucia and put an end to their illegal activities.

The network was discovered by an undercover agent who went hunting with the poachers to ascertain the extent of their illegal killing of these animals – some of which are on Greenpeace’s “in danger of extinction” list.

This network would offer special “hunting” weekends to anyone who paid. They would be taken to an area in the north of the Malaga Mountains and allowed to kill whatever they liked.

The network also specialised in selling “trophies” of stuffed animal heads.

Those detained stand accused of, among other things, poaching, fraud, falsifying documents and behaviour not fitting to a public employee.