On the run, smugglers who sold sick puppies for £1,000 a time
TWO puppy farmers who made £300,000 by selling diseased dogs they smuggled into Britain have gone on the run to avoid jail.
Lithuanian couple Laura Kiseliova, 39, and Raimondas Titas, 37, sold designer breeds such as pugs and French bulldogs for up to £1,000 each.
Buyers were told they were UKbred puppies when, in fact, the dogs were being imported illegally, mostly from Eastern Europe, and kept in dire conditions.
A raid on the fraudsters’ home in 2015 involving trading standards and the RSPCA found animals starving and shivering in squalid conditions and covered in scabs.
Cages were stacked on top of one another in a garage and a litter of puppies was being kept in a ‘filthy’ bathroom. Two bulldogs were so poorly that they died just days after they were rescued.
Following years of legal wrangling, the pair fled the country before a sentencing hearing.
Kiseliova, branded ‘calculating and manipulative’ by a trading standards officer, and Titas, whose lawyer claimed he had been following her instructions, set up an online business called Pets313.
Customers were directed to an address in Salford, Greater Manchester, and shown professionallooking ‘pet packs’ suggesting the dogs had been examined by vets.
One customer, Jason Marshall, spent £800 buying his wife a pug for Christmas named Coco, Manchester Crown Court heard. The dog soon fell ill and vets found lung and hip problems and a hernia.
Gemma Walker bought a French bulldog called Bella for £720, which began having breathing problems when she took it home. When she called the puppy farmers, they retorted that the dog ‘wasn’t their problem any more’.
A microchip revealed the dog had been imported from Denmark and Ms Walker faced vet bills of more than £4,500 to treat it. An investigation revealed the pair had misused a pet passport to import animals to the UK. They are thought to have smuggled in as many as 341 dogs and 388 cats.
Kiseliova had pleaded guilty to fraudulent trading and animal cruelty and was sentenced in her absence to four years in jail. Titas, had admitted animal cruelty and fraud, and was jailed in his absence for three-and-a-half years.
Judge Richard Mansell QC said the fraudsters had ‘put their desire and greed before the welfare of animals’, adding: ‘The treatment of those animals was nothing short of appalling.’
Arrest warrants have been issued for the pair, who are thought to have fled to Eastern Europe.
The undercover RSPCA investigator who helped expose the crimes said: ‘This was a large money-making operation at the expense of the welfare of the animals and the unsuspecting public who thought they were buying healthy, happy puppies.’