MDSO’s agricultural patrol section records dramatic reduction in thefts of produce and horses

A 15 percent reduction in crime within any defined district would be considered a significant achievement by most law enforcement standards. A 50 percent drop borders on the improbable.

Yet in the agricultural fringes of Miami-Dade County, where suburban development gives way to groves, nurseries and backyard stables, deputies assigned to the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office’s Agricultural Patrol Section have done just that. Since 2023, they have cut in half a stubborn and often overlooked category of crime: the theft of avocados and other produce, and the grisly, illicit slaughter of horses for meat.

The crimes, while niche in appearance, are neither small nor isolated. Fueled by a persistent black-market demand, organized groups have siphoned off hundreds of thousands of dollars in crops, slipping into groves under cover of darkness and stripping trees bare.

“When I started out here in 2023, there was an average of five or six horse slaughters a year,” said Sgt. Pedro Guerra, who oversees the small, specialized unit of three deputies. “Through our investigations, we identified the main players — the criminal organizations — and we brought those main antagonists to justice. In 2025, there wasn’t a single case.”

Such results do not emerge by accident. They are the product of methodical investigative work, persistence and a familiarity with a landscape where agriculture and crime intersect in ways that are both highly localized and deeply organized.

For example, through their investigation, the Section discovered that the individuals who were hitting the groves and loading box trucks to the hilt with avocados were undocumented but answered to a hierarchy that paid them in cash.

Horses, in some cases taken from private properties, have been butchered and processed for sale, their meat trafficked far beyond county lines.

The stolen produce often reappears in plain sight — sold at roadside stands or in open-air markets, advertised with little more than handwritten cardboard signs. The horsemeat trade is more discreet but no less extensive, moving through informal networks and turning up in plastic bags in clandestine locations as far away as Okeechobee, roughly 160 miles north, sometimes behind the anonymous sprawl of big-box retail centers.

Through collaboration with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, those undocumented individuals provided valuable information that helped Detective Guerra in his investigations of not only produce, but also with the horse thefts and other criminal activities.

Among the deputies credited with uncovering the main perpetrators is Detective Josue Guerra Jr., no relation to his supervisor, whose investigative work has drawn recognition beyond law enforcement circles. This year, he was named the Dade County Farm Bureau’s Deputy of the Year — an acknowledgment not only of arrests made, but of a broader disruption to a criminal ecosystem.

He has been a member of the agency for 21 years, 11 as a detective, and was assigned to the Section’s investigations unit in June 2023.

Detective Guerra also was credited with recovering stolen exotic birds, valued at over $25,000. The birds were stolen from a business, and after Detective Guerra watched surveillance video of the theft, he traced the suspect to his residence in Opa Locka.

“I met a lot of the farmers, we’ve interacted a lot, and I’m honored to get that award,” Detective Guerra said. He will receive his award on Saturday, April 25, 2026, during the Dade County Farm Bureau’s 46th Annual Barbecue at the Florida Farm Bureau’s Dimare Annex, 500 N. Krome Avenue, Florida City.