26 people, 400 dogs in dogfight crackdown

ST. LOUIS, July 9 (UPI) -- Twenty-six people were charged in seven states and more than 400 dogs seized in a widespread crackdown on dogfighting, authorities said.

State and federal agents staged raids in several states Wednesday, picking up individuals in Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas, The New York Times reported.

The arrests stem from the same investigation, but officials said the rings were not necessarily connected and trials are planned at four sites.

"The allegation is not that this was one concentrated, organized conspiracy," said Don Ledford, a spokesman for acting U.S. Attorney Matt Whitworth in Kansas City, Mo. "This was not one big ring."

The president of the Humane Society of Missouri, however, saw it as "the largest coordinated rescue in U.S. history."

In Missouri, the authorities charged 12 people, in Texas federal prosecutors charged nine, and in Illinois the authorities charged five with, among other things, buying, selling and breeding animals for dogfighting.