A 52-year-old man was arrested after authorities uncovered a suspected cockfighting operation with thousands of roosters on a 10-acre property in Southwest Miami-Dade. Carlos Rafael Lezcano is facing several charges in connection with the investigation, including animal cruelty and animal fightin g. The case began Saturday afternoon when the FBI searched the property along the 12300 block of Southwest 51st Street as part of a separate investigation and discovered what appeared to be a cockfighting site, according to a Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office arrest report. During the search, federal agents discovered what appeared to be a cockfighting location and contacted the sheriff’s office Organized Crime Bureau’s Vice and Intelligence Squad. A detective who walked through the 10-acre property reported seeing several thousand game fowl roosters and numerous enclosed cockfighting training rings. Investigators also found items they said were associated with rooster fighting, including vitamins, syringes, medication and rooster agitators. A judge approved a search warrant for the property later that evening as part of the animal cruelty investigation. Detectives returned with Miami-Dade Animal Services shortly before 8 a.m. Sunday to execute the warrant. While investigators searched an area containing approximately 100 individually housed roosters, a detective spotted two people who had breached the secured perimeter, according to the report. The detective identified himself as law enforcement and repeatedly ordered the two to stop, but investigators said they ran away, jumped a fence and fled south from the property. Deputies later spotted Lezcano walking at a nearby nursery along the 12400 block of Southwest 56th Street and took him into custody without incident. Investigators said they discovered additional suspected cockfighting equipment, including used fighting spurs, rooster agitators, boxing gloves, a large training ring, syringes and medication. Lezcano was transported to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. ...read more read less