Seprona corners the 'Friend of the Parrots' for 55 complaints and looks for more scammers

AV has parrot tattoos all over his body, also on his motorcycle and on his wallpaper. In her house, even the fabric of the sofa is special so that these animals can live at ease. He is the

Friend of the Parrots

, the protagonist, along with his psittacine birds, of colorful YouTube videos in which you can find advice for the breeding and care of parrots, parrots, macaws, nymphs and other relatives of this enormous and exotic family that numbers around 400. species. In an interview on Galician Television two years ago, AV openly said that in his house in Ourense he lived with “100 couples”, that is, 200 animals. That's not counting “the babies,” because if he added them up he would reach “three hundred and something.” On the set of the program

Quen anda aí?

, the breeder appeared with

Apollo

on his arm, a white newt cockatoo with blue eyes and a beautiful yellow crest, according to him trained to work with children "in Down and autism centers." He explained that his specimens were sold, depending on the species, between 350 and 20,000 euros, and that he was the one who chose the buyers, because not everyone was “qualified” to have a beautiful and long-lived parrot. “A parrot can die of grief,” he stressed at the

Vigo Lighthouse

in 2019.

In mid-March, AV was arrested by agents of the Seprona (Nature Protection Service) of Ourense after an investigation that began in 2022, when the first complaints of fraud from clients in Catalonia and the Valencian Community were registered. After managing to centralize all the cases of fraud that have arisen in Spain in the Investigative Court 1 of Ourense, the Civil Guard assures that it already has 55 alleged victims and hopes that the dissemination of the news will bring more to light. These people say that they received the bird sick, or that it died upon arrival, or that it never arrived. They say that they never received the CITES certificate (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) from the breeder, the papers that are required of any owner of one of these birds and that are linked to a ring on the leg. , which in this case, according to the Civil Guard, “was also false.”

The Seprona sources consulted add that the only documents that the

YouTuber

sent with the parrots to those people who paid “1,000 or 2,500 euros” were falsified analyses: sexing tests with the letterhead of a laboratory in Pontevedra, and documents with the seal from another from Madrid that

guaranteed

that the animals did not carry infections, such as the dangerous bacteria

Chlamydia psittaci

, transmissible to humans. The Civil Guard says that these laboratories have joined the cause as victims. They do not recognize those reports as theirs.

“There are not many people who have these birds, so those who get to know each other form WhatsApp groups,” comments a member of the Seprona team from the Ourense Command. It was through this route that different clients allegedly scammed by AV came into contact. “None of them had the CITES certificate” issued by the Government, says the civil guard, and AV “who was not registered as a breeder, nor was his kennel.” , he never officially registered any of the chicks.

The Civil Guard is convinced that he sold specimens born in his home (circumventing the legal obligation to notify each psittacine egg he incubated) and is now investigating his relations with Portugal. He suspects that this border was the door to introduce specimens from the international trade of “very protected species” from Brazil and Ecuador, “of which he did not have pairs” with which to obtain clutches. “This will be the way to demonstrate that in addition to continued crimes of fraud and document falsification, he committed illegal trafficking and importation of birds of 32 protected species,” they say from Seprona, “at the same time, a solution is being sought to legalize all "These parrots that do not exist for the Government."

In a telephone conversation with EL PAÍS, the breeder denies that his birds do not have the CITES in order: “I have sold more than 2,000 parrots and all of them have the certificate; “Only two people do not have it yet and that is because it still has to come from Portugal.” This neighbor from Verín assures that the investigation is based on “lies” from “29 people.” “It was them who killed their animals, and in one case it was MRW, the transport company, because the chicken died of hypothermia on the trip,” he justifies. “I have been selflessly helping people for years, on my YouTube channel, with thousands and thousands of views, I have a video in which I appear explaining what papers to require when buying a parrot... people who bought animals from scammers “They then came to me for help.”

AV appeared in the press several times talking about his birds. He says that he came to the psittacines "by chance" one day when he went to Carrefour, he saw a nymph, bought it and baptized it with the name

Elvis

. In interviews, he has shown his pair of gray parrots,

Vera

and

Elmo

. Seprona carried out a routine “check” of its bird collection (17 pairs) in 2019, discovering that it had many specimens. “Then we didn't suspect that he would sell, he told us that he didn't,” says a spokesperson. Until three years later, when the first complaints began, some presented to the Mossos d'Esquadra, they did not focus on him again.

“If you give them some fruits, their crop stops”

The investigator explains that the chicks that died after being delivered were due to the poor care of the buyers. "I was sending them feeding guidelines, about how to change their diet in the first months and I warned them about the fruits that they cannot eat, because their crop stops," says the breeder, "all this is going to happen." see in the trial, I can prove it.”

“Last year around this time,” remembers an agent, “we noticed a very big drop in his activity and he stopped posting his videos on the

Amigos de los Parrots

channel .” The investigation arising from complaints from individuals had been underway for a year, “and he, who was also on WhatsApp forums for parrot owners, was able to find out,” acknowledges the civil guard. In 2023, the 49-year-old breeder had changed his residence, had left his telephone shop business (whose CIF, according to the investigation, “he used for the hatchery”, known as Aviario AVA) and had started a new existence as a hotelier, They count from Seprona. The local press covered the premiere of his hamburger restaurant in Verín.

On March 15, the teletypes gave a different headline: “An illegal bird trafficking plot with international connections and scams throughout Spain falls in Ourense.” The case, baptized by investigators as Operation Arensivia, in memory of the friendly sergeant from the comic strips

Historias de la Puta Mili

(

El Jueves

), emerged in forums of parrot lovers long before the Civil Guard reported AV's arrest. and the investigation of two women, his partner and the manager of a veterinary clinic in Verín, as alleged “necessary collaborators” in his activities. Messages written months ago on a page that collects comments and ratings from restaurant users already called the suspect to account: “scamster and animal abuse,” “just saying that Mr. AV [...] has scammed many people.”

In her videos, AV appears delicately “soaking” her

babies

with a syringe. “They are delivered when they are three months old,” she said on television, “the first face they see when they are born is mine, and I take away the genetic inheritance of savagery by giving them porridge every day. It has to be at 42 degrees, as if her parents gave it to her, at a higher temperature “their crops would burn.”

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