Thread: Illegal immigrants smuggling drugs may have stolen Tubac hor

http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=4304545&nav=HMO6HMaY

Erica Heartquist Reports
Illegal immigrants smuggling drugs may have stolen Tubac horse
Dec 31, 2005, 09:54 AM EST

A woman in Tubac is asking for your help in finding her stolen horse.

The horse was stolen last Wednesday and the horse is blind.

The Border Patrol says it looks like illegal immigrants took the horse to carry people or drugs.

"Boss" is a 30-year-old Appaloosa horse.

"She just basically disappeared," says Lil Hunsaker, Boss's owner.

Boss and another horse, "Pretty Girl" were grazing inside secured fences when the woman that was housing the horses saw a man from her window taking Boss away.

"A small man, kind of behind the horse was taking, Boss," says Margaret Beaty who housed the horses on her land.

Before she got out the door, Beaty says the horse was gone. "They pulled down the horse fence and the far back corner and she completely disappeared."

The Santa Cruz County Sheriff says it's not that unusual for people to steal horses.

He says anything is possible along the border towns where, he says, illegal immigrants will use any mode of transportation they can get.

In this case, Hunsaker says it looks like the horse wasn't stolen for transporting people.

"The Border Patrol surmises that they used her as a pack animal to pack drugs that it was drug runners, not people who wanted a ride."

With word of last Wednesday's incident, horse owners in the area say they've been watching their horses closely making sure all their gates are locked.

But even if they are locked, as in the case of Boss and the other horse , Beaty warns, "I just want all horse owners to be aware that this situation is going on and to be very cautious."

Hunsaker says she just wants Boss back.

"She's just a big old baby- a big pet and we loved her very much," Hunsaker says as she starts to cry.

A rancher in Tubac told Eyewitness News 4 he's had a hard time keeping illegal immigrants from cutting the wire fencing on his ranch just a half a mile away from where Boss was stolen.

He says horse meat is used in dog food and goes for about $500 a horse. He says that could also be an incentive for some to steal horses.

hanging horse thieves was a good idea, shame it is no longer the "proper" punishment.

My thoughts exactly COI. They'll end up starving Boss to death.

There is no low these people will not stoop to in order to invade our nation and wreck their havoc.

Poor Boss!! She must be terrified.

I just finished reading a book about horses being stolen in Texas. It was fiction but probably based on fact. The thieves were stealing older horses and carting them off to the slaughter house and were getting paid up to $1000 per horse. The book said that people in Europe think of horse meat as a delicacy. That was just SO SAD. I can only imagine how those poor people in the border states feel when their "babies" are stolen.

The French import horse meat from the US. PETA is working on a law to forbid that and make it illegal to raise horse meat for sale.

That is a GOOD THING.