Animal Rights Group Looking for Man Sledgehammering Hogs

An undercover video that captured a man known as “Elvin” butchering pigs alive has Animal Recovery Mission investigators trying to find the culprit.

“Taking sledgehammers and beating them one after the other with sledgehammers, holding them down, stabbing them repeatedly, gutting them alive,” Richard Cuoto, ARM lead investigator, said while describing what the video showed.

ARM’s Operation Noche Buena, a five month investigation, helped shut the slaughterhouse down. Several people including the farm’s owners were arrested on charges of animal cruelty. But the man wielding the sledgehammer, known only as Elvin, is still at large.

“He is the most violent person and really the main killer on the property,” Cuoto said.

Cuoto told NBC 6 that Elvin may still be torturing animals for human consumption. But, he may also be working as a tow-truck driver and is well-known in the area of Northwest Miami-Dade County. ARM is offering a $10,000 for information leading to his arrest.

“Once this guy is caught, he’s probably looking at hundreds of extreme animal cruelty crimes, felony crimes. So he’s in trouble,” Cuoto said.

Cuoto said some parents even brought their children to the slaughter farm and that they were witnesses to what he described as being “butchered alive.”

“Look at your dog right now on the couch,” Cuoto said. “And these pigs in that operation are smarter than that pet. So what’s going through their minds during this process and watching their friends butchered alive is horrific.”

Sources: NBC 6, ARM,