EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A Mexican environmental agency has taken custody of a rare large feline, which police found in an abandoned home as they investigated cartel activity south of the border from Presidio, Texas.

The liger – a cross between a male lion and a tigress – was inside a steel cage in one of three homes whose exterior showed multiple bullet holes, according to the Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office.

Coyame and nearby Ojinaga two weeks ago were the site of rolling gun battles between two rival transnational criminal organizations battling for control of drug and migrant smuggling into rural Far West Texas. Chihuahua Attorney General Cesar Jauregui told reporters the six deceased were members of La Linea and a Chihuahua-based cell of the Sinaloa cartel.

The ensuing investigation led Chihuahua police to the homes in Coyame, where they found a 2020 Toyota Tundra pickup reported stolen in the United States, ammunition, tactical vests and several gun cases. The state police seized the items, and the Mexican army took custody of the homes, the Jauregui’s office said in a statement.

PROFEPA, the Mexican federal environmental agency, retrieved the liger from the home. State officials told Border Report the liger is in good health and temporarily residing in a zoo in Chihuahua City.

According to a 2017 National Geographic article, these lion-tiger breeds typically don’t happen in nature but are the result of crossbreeding in captivity.

And according to Jose Luis Montenegro, author of the book Narco-Juniors, “exotic” animals such as tigers and lions have become a status symbol among drug traffickers going back to jailed Sinaloa cartel cofounder Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and the late Medellin cartel kingpin Pablo Escobar.