Chavez and his assistant Olivarez lived together in a horse stable located on a farm at 19890 SW 180th Street. The accommodations were "crappy", in the words of a detective involved. Chavez' mother lived in a nearby trailer.
An informant told Miami-Dade cops that the cronies were peddling horse meat. A detective showed up and allegedly paid Chavez fifty bucks for a black plastic bag full of the stuff. Hence the photos of them cuffed in chairs, which come straight from the personal iPhone of a cop who was on the scene. In a freezer, investigators found an additional 240 pounds of horse meat.
The pair have both been in cuffs before. Olivarez has been nabbed for trespassing and having an open container of booze in a vehicle. At the time of the horse meat sting, Chavez was on probation for the not-at-all-creepy charge of battery on the elderly. He was charged with violating probation and spent three weeks in jail.Olivarez was charged with unlawful sale of horse meat, a misdemeanor. Cops allowed the assistant to remain a free man so he could care for the farm animals and his boss' mother.
The charges aren't especially serious because cops can't prove that they slaughtered a horse. Chavez claimed that his horse died of colic and they were planning on eating it themselves, says a detective. When the undercover agent showed up offering cash, how could the poor farmers resist?
The detective isn't buying it: "Our source told us that these guys are running a horse meat operation."
