New investigative report ties rural cockfighting empire to felons and international crime rings
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A blistering new report released today by Animal Wellness Action and Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK) exposes a vast criminal enterprise spanning from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Dallas, Texas, centered around cockfighting but bound together with illegal gambling, narcotics trafficking, tax evasion, political corruption, and international money laundering.
Dubbed the “Texoma Cockfighting Corridor,” this extensive crime network sends animals to their deaths in fighting pits peppering the Tulsa-to-Dallas corridor but also ships thousands of fighting birds from the United States to even more hardened organized crime networks in Mexico and the Philippines.
“We’ve uncovered an organized crime network that is not only violent but also vast in its global reach,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action. “Animal fighting is a crime wave in action, and when ignored, it puts communities at risk and breeds lawlessness.”
“We have documented a supply chain of wanton cruelty that stretches across state borders all the way to the world’s largest cockfighting arena in the Philippines,” said Kevin Chambers, state director of Animal Wellness Action in Oklahoma. “The ill-gotten gains from this illegal trade fuel an underground network of cockfighting and associated crimes in communities across the Texoma Corridor.”
Key Findings from the Investigation
• North Texas Livestock Shipping Company — An International Cockfighting Pipeline. Investigators uncovered this Dallas-area front company that acts as a broker for fighting animals reared in the southeast and southwest and then traffics the animals to the Philippines, violating federal animal fighting and export laws. Our investigators documented that birds are crammed into crates and flown aboard Korean Airlines. These shipments of animals with “killing power” feed a semi-illicit billion-dollar gambling industry and are bound up with the mass murder of dozens of people involved in the enterprises.
• Local Political Corruption and Complicity in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Gamefowl Commission, led by cockfighters Anthony Devore and Blake Pearce, illegally raised campaign funds by selling fighting birds and using the proceeds to influence state lawmakers — including direct outreach to Gov. Kevin Stitt, who later appeared in a cockfighting convention video praising their work. In September 2025, the Oklahoma Ethics Commission fined the organization $10,000, ordered it disbanded, and cited gross campaign finance violations. Animal Wellness Action investigators not only documented these campaign-finance violations but also filmed Devore and Pearce attending and participating in illegal cockfighting derbies despite their public denials of involvement.
• Convicted Felons Operating Freely. The report documents criminal activities by John Bottoms of LeFlore County, Okla, and Bobby Fairchild of Coalgate, Okla., both well-known figures in the cockfighting world.
- Bottoms, previously arrested for illegal cockfighting and with a substance abuse history, admits on camera that cockfighting is “what we do for a living,” has shipped more than 1,700 roosters through the U.S. Mail to Guam for fighting derbies. He also boasts of using “four-inch knives” and training birds to “fight until their last dying breath.”
- Fairchild, previously charged in federal drug trafficking and money laundering cases linked to the Gulf Cartel, continues to operate one of Oklahoma’s largest gamefowl farms, Clear Creek Gamefarm. His birds are sold and fought in Mexico and the Philippines. SHARK investigators recorded Fairchild’s wife Brenda shipping crates of fighting birds through the U.S. Postal Service — a federal crime. It appears that the birds in that shipment were headed to a Texas border town, perhaps to be picked up by cartel runners who control many of the cockfighting venues in Mexico.
Systemic Corruption and Organized Crime
The investigation details how cartel-linked cockfighting networks launder drug money through “gamefowl farms,” using cockfighting events as cash-heavy gatherings for narcotics and weapons deals. Enforcement remains dangerously uneven: While Texas sheriffs have conducted aerial raids and multiple arrests, many Oklahoma counties and tribal jurisdictions have ignored cockfighting operations — even when tipped off by investigators with GPS coordinates and video evidence.
In Adair County, deputies refused to intervene in a large cockfight despite advance notice and later invited the pit owner to press charges against animal cruelty investigators instead. In Bryan County, a major cockfighting ringleader received only a $200 fine after hosting hundreds of participants.
“These pits aren’t backyard operations — they’re hubs for narcotics, illegal gambling, and sometimes even human trafficking,” said Steve Hindi, president of SHARK. “The violence doesn’t end in the ring and the people involved are lawbreakers through and through.”
The report also exposes dozens of ongoing operations across Texas and Oklahoma — many connected through a network of political front groups, online marketplaces for cockfighting knives, and international marketing videos filmed for Filipino betting networks.
Animal Wellness Action and SHARK are urging federal agencies — including the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and USDA Office of Inspector General — to take immediate action. They also call for passage of the FIGHT Act, bipartisan legislation to give law enforcement greater authority to prosecute animal fighting crimes.
The full report, “The Texoma Cockfighting Corridor,” includes maps, videos, and firsthand investigative findings and is available here.