Gov. DeSantis signs law imposing tougher penalties for abandoning pets during disasters
Legislation signed into law Wednesday by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will impose tougher penalties on people who abandon pets during natural disasters, a measure inspired by the rescue of a dog left in floodwaters during Hurricane Milton.
With the 2025 hurricane season starting next week, the governor also signed a bill that enhances criminal penalties for severe cruelty to dogs and other pets.
The bull terrier found during Hurricane Milton was left chained to a fence along Interstate 75 near Tampa. A state trooper rescued the dog — now named Trooper — and he was adopted by a couple in Broward County, DeSantis said during an event at Big Dog Ranch Rescue outside Royal Palm Beach.
The owner of that dog was charged with animal cruelty. Under the new law taking effect Oct. 1, violations taking place during hurricanes or other disasters will be punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
'Florida will not tolerate cruelty toward animals, especially in times of crisis," said the governor, who signed the bills while cradling a puppy.
The second measure was inspired by a St. Petersburg-area case involving a dog named Dexter that was found decapitated at a park. This bill taking effect July 1 allows for a range of enhanced penalties in cases of severe animal abuse.
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Daily Mail
32 minutes ago
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Daily Mail
33 minutes ago
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The death row inmate's last meal that sparked such fury prisoners are no longer allowed to choose what they eat before execution
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BBC News
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On the surface, Muhammed Asif Hafeez was an upstanding individual.A global businessman and ambassador of a prestigious London polo club, he rubbed shoulders with the British elite, including members of the Royal also regularly passed on detailed information to the authorities in the UK and Middle East that, in some cases, led to the interception of huge shipments of drugs. He was motivated, he said, simply by what he saw as his "moral obligation to curb and highlight criminal activities".At least, that is what he would have had people reality, Hafeez was himself what US officials described as "one of the world's most prolific drug traffickers".From his residence in the UK, he was the puppet-master of a vast drugs empire, supplying many tonnes of heroin, methamphetamine and hashish from bases in Pakistan and India that were distributed across the world. 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People in Lahore who knew the family told the BBC that his father had owned a factory near the city. Hafeez also later told a US court that he had trained as a commercial the early 1990s to about the mid-2010s, he ran an outwardly legitimate umbrella company called Sarwani International Corporation, with subsidiary businesses in Pakistan, the UAE and the to its website - which has since been shut down - it sold technical equipment to militaries, governments and police forces throughout the world, including equipment for drug the other businesses under the Sarwani umbrella were a textiles company registered in various countries, an Italian restaurant in Lahore that was a franchise of a well-known Knightsbridge brand, and a company named Tipmoor, based near Windsor to the west of London, which specialised in "polo and equestrian services".These businesses not only afforded him a luxury lifestyle, but secured him access to the UK's most exclusive circles. 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The employee - who has asked not to be identified, for fear of reprisals - said he eventually left the business because he felt uncomfortable with this."There were no [bank] transactions, no records, no existence," he told the would also periodically write letters to the authorities in the UAE and UK informing on rival cartels, under the guise of being a concerned member of the public. The BBC has seen these, as well as letters he received in response from the British Embassy in Dubai and the UK Home Office, thanking him and expressing their appreciation for him getting in Home Office told the BBC it does not comment on individual Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Government of Dubai were contacted by the BBC for comment but did not respond. Members of Hafeez's family shared these letters with the BBC in 2018, while he was embroiled in a lengthy legal fight against extradition to the US. They also submitted them to courts in the UK and, later, to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), as evidence that he had been an informant and needed protection. All the courts disagreed and ruled that this was a ploy by Hafeez to rid the market of the ECHR said, was "someone who had brought to the attention of the authorities the criminal conduct of others who he knew to be actual or potential rivals to his substantial criminal enterprise". While Hafeez was writing these letters, a meeting took place in 2014 that - despite him not being there - would lead to his of Hafeez's close associates met a potential buyer from Colombia in a flat in Mombasa, Kenya. They burned a small amount of heroin in order to demonstrate how pure it was, and said they could supply him with any quantity of "100%... white crystal".The supplier of this high-quality heroin, they had told the buyer, was a man from Pakistan known as "the Sultan" - that is, they would soon learn was that the "buyer" from Colombia was actually working undercover for the US's Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The entire meeting was part of an elaborate sting operation, and had been covertly filmed - footage that has been obtained by the BBC. US court documents reveal the deal was co-ordinated by Baktash and Ibrahim Akasha, two brothers who led a violent cartel in Kenya. Their father was himself a feared kingpin who had been killed in Amsterdam's Red Light District in deal also involved Vijaygiri "Vicky" Goswami, an Indian national who managed the Akashas' October 2014, with the Akashas, Goswami and Hafeez still unaware of who the buyers really were, 99kg of heroin and 2kg of crystal meth were delivered to the fake Colombian traffickers. The Akashas promised to provide hundreds of kilograms more of each drug.A month later, the Akasha brothers and Goswami were arrested in Mombasa. They were released on bail shortly afterwards, and spent over two years fighting extradition to the the background, American law enforcers were working with counterparts in the UK to piece together their case against Hafeez, partly using evidence gathered from devices they had seized when they arrested Goswami and the Akasha brothers. On those, they had found multiple references to Hafeez as a major supplier, and were able to find enough evidence to identify him as "the Sultan".Facing charges in the US didn't stop one of the men, Goswami, from continuing his illegal enterprise. In 2015, while on bail in Kenya, he hatched a plan with Hafeez to transport several tonnes of a drug called ephedrine from a chemical factory in Solapur, India, to a powerful medication that is legal in limited quantities, is used to make methamphetamine. The two men - Goswami and Hafeez - planned to set up a meth factory in Mozambique's capital, Maputo, US court documents show. But their scheme was abandoned in 2016, when police raided the Solapur plant and seized 18 tonnes of Akasha brothers and Goswami finally boarded a flight to the US to face trial in January 2017. Hafeez was arrested eight months later in London, at his flat in the affluent St John's Wood neighbourhood. He was detained at high security Belmarsh Prison in south-east London, and it was from there that he spent six years fighting extradition to the US.A big development happened in 2019 in the US. Goswami pleaded guilty, and told a New York court he had agreed to co-operate with prosecutors. The Akasha brothers also pleaded Akasha was sentenced to 25 years in prison. His brother Ibrahim was sentenced to 23 who is yet to be sentenced, would have testified against Hafeez in the US had the case gone to Belmarsh, Hafeez was running out of tried to stop extradition to the US - but failed to convince magistrates, the High Court in London and the ECHR that he had, in fact, been an informant to the authorities who was "at risk of ill-treatment from his fellow prisoners" as a result. He also claimed the conditions in a US prison would be "inhuman and degrading" for him because of his health conditions, including type 2 diabetes and lost all of these arguments at every stage and was extradited in May case did not go to trial. In November last year, Hafeez pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiring to manufacture and distribute heroin, methamphetamine and hashish and to import them into the US. Pre-sentencing, prosecutors described the "extremely fortunate circumstances" of Hafeez's life, which "throw into harsh relief his decision to scheme... and to profit from the distribution of dangerous substances that destroy lives and whole communities"."Unlike many traffickers whose drug activities are borne, at least in part, from desperation, poverty, and a lack of educational opportunities," they said, "the defendant has lived a life replete with privilege and choice."
