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The baby jaguar had to die. At least, that’s what the superstitious Rio Grande City drug-trafficking organization believed was necessary for its next shipment of marijuana, cocaine, or meth to slip undetected past U.S. border authorities in deep South Texas. A ritual sacrifice, complete with candlelit prayer to bless illicit cargo, had preceded other successful drug runs, after all. So, a five-week-old jaguar was declawed, and its canine teeth were filed down in preparation for the ceremony.How the jaguar cub ended up in the hands of drug traffickers remains uncertain, though Jim Stinebaugh, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent who worked the case, says it’s a safe bet that it was sneaked across the border from Mexico to Mission, probably sedated and hidden in…

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