Federal agents arrested six people in Rhode Island and Massachusetts as part of the latest cockfighting roundup across the country involving suspected criminal rings that put razor-sharp blades on roosters as part of a battle to the death.

Forty-five people have been charged in grand jury indictments since January for running fights in California, Rhode Island and Washington State, according to Justice Department records. Most of the investigations target violations of the Animal Fighting Prohibition Act, which empowers prosecutors to bring strengthened charges.

"It is a federal crime to exhibit or sponsor an animal in, be a spectator at, or bring a minor under the age of sixteen to an animal fight," according to the DOJ's Environment and Natural Resources Division. "It is also a federal crime to possess, purchase, sell, receive, transport, deliver, or train an animal for purposes of participation in an animal fight."

A Rhode Island man is accused of running and sponsoring a series of derbies in 2022 out of his Providence home with five other men, the Justice Department said Tuesday. Federal prosecutors said two men in the group harbored roosters strictly for combat since 2021 and others procured weapons for the birds to wear.

DOJ seizes hundreds of birds in cockfights

According to court records, Miguel Delgado hosted the fights at his Providence home in February and March of 2022. Federal prosecutors said he sponsored birds while also buying and selling gaffs - essentially razor-sharp steel blades - for cockfighting derbies.

The group bought roosters and gaffes to be used in the animal brawls at Delgado's home, prosecutors said. Court records didn't specify the roles the six men played in the fighting rings or if they made money from the derbies.

Cockfighting is a contest in which a person attaches a knife, gaff or other sharp instrument to the leg of a “gamecock” or rooster and then places the bird a few inches away from a similarly armed rooster, federal prosecutors wrote.

"This results in a fight during which the roosters flap their wings and jump while stabbing each other with the weapons that are fastened to their legs," federal prosecutors in Rhode Island said in an indictment. A cockfight ends when one rooster is dead or refuses to continue to fight. Commonly, one or both roosters die after a fight.

All six men in the Rhode Island case pleaded not guilty on Wednesday, according to court records. If convicted, they could face up to five years in prison.

In August, the Justice Department charged five Californians for running cockfighting events in San Bernardino County that at times drew in 100 attendees and involved betting on derbies.

In April, 34 people were charged in six different court cases for running rooster brawls in Washington State. The case stems from a 2018 investigation into the La Nuestra Familia, a prison gang. Hundreds of roosters were seized and turned over to the Heartwood Haven Animal Rescue in Roy, Washington.

Animal welfare groups call for tougher punishment

Cockfighting is an age-old practice in which two or more specially bred birds, known as gamecocks, are placed in an enclosed pit to fight for the primary purposes of gambling and entertainment, according to the Humane Society of the United States.

Even if a bird doesn't die in a fight, the Humane Society said they're still suffering. Most will live on a farm tied to an object to keep them contained.

"They are often injected with steroids and adrenaline boosting drugs and, for two to three weeks prior to a fight, are kept in a small dark box to isolate them from other animals and deprive them of stimuli and natural behavior," the Humane Society said on its website.

The Humane Society said that motives behind cockfighting rings are money and gambling. Federal investigations led officials to international drug cartels that used the operations to distribute drugs in the U.S.

Cockfighting is illegal in every state but the organization says more needs to be done. The Humane Society is pushing for stronger laws in 11 states - Alabama, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina and Utah - to outlaw owning, breeding or selling birds for fights.

The United States isn't the only country dealing with cockfights, wrote Wayne Pacelle, founder of advocacy group Animal Wellness Action. He wrote that the Fighting Inhumane Gambling and High-Risk Trafficking Act would stop the global business around cockfighting.

He wrote the bill, if passed, would ban online gambling on animal fights, allow courts to seize pits and property used by people convicted of animal fighting, stop people from shipping fighting roosters in the mail and allow people to pursue civil lawsuits against "cockfighters and dogfighters when governmental authorities are too slow to act."

U.S. Reps. Don Bacon, R-Nebraska, and Andrea Salinas, D-Oregon, introduced the bill in the U.S. House of Representatives in April 2023, according to congressional records. U.S. Senators Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, and John Kennedy, R-Louisiana, introduced the bill in the Senate in May 2023.

Contact reporter Krystal Nurse at [email protected]. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter,@KrystalRNurse.