SLED steps up blood sport crackdown against dogfights across South Carolina

The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division has a new dogfighting unit and is cracking down on criminal rings of people who promote the cruel and deadly blood sport in clandestine places.

“We’re investigating dog fighting in every corner of South Carolina right now,” said SLED chief Mark Keel at a Monday press conference at the agency’s $64 million modern crime lab on Broad River Road.

“This is not just animal cruelty. It is organized criminal activity that oftentimes is related to other violent crimes. SLED agents who work these cases routinely find drugs and guns and money,” Keel said.

“It exists in the shadows,” Keel said.

People who fight the dogs and attend the fights in out-of-the-way places are gamblers betting on the outcome and waging large amounts of money on each fight, officials said. Fights are to the death.

In the last week alone, SLED and local law enforcement agencies arrested 11 suspects in Dillon and Marion counties in the Pee Dee, rescuing some 160 dogs, seizing $69,700 in cash, 55 guns, 17 pounds of marijuana, one kilogram of cocaine, 990 fentanyl pills and 2,266 ecstasy pills, Keel said. Nearly all defendants face numerous charges of animal fighting, ill treatment of animals and criminal conspiracy.

Underscoring Keel’s message at the press conference was Gov. Henry McMaster, who said the cruelty of dogfights is such that a video played before a jury at a dogfighter’s trial once drove a court official sobbing from the courtroom.

One example of animal cruelty is that dogfighters are known to use “bait dogs,” dogs whose mouths are taped shut so they can’t effectively fight back. Tougher, stronger dogs used in the fights kill the bait dogs for practice, said McMaster, who as state attorney general from 2002 to 2010 prosecuted dogfighting cases.

Also speaking was Jennifer Bonovich, a Columbia area forensic veterinarian who goes to dogfighting crime scenes and collects and analyzes evidence, and Matt Bershadker, president and CEO of the New York American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

“The type of leadership that Gov. McMaster and Chief Keel are showing is unprecedented,” said Bershadker, saying other states have not made cracking down on dogfighters the kind of priority that South Carolina has.

Bonovich, who testifies in court in dogfighting cases, said that the violent and secretive life of a dog who fights begin when they are puppies and then raised to be strong and to! fight to kill.

“I speak for animals who cannot speak for themselves,” Bonovich said. “They cannot testify. But I can.”

In 2024 and so far in 2025, SLED and local law agencies have seized dogs used in fighting in 16 out of the state’s 46 counties, from the Upstate to the Pee Dee to the Midlands to the Lowcountry, according to SLED.

Counties where dogs used in fights have been recovered in 2024 and 2025 are: Anderson, Greenville, Spartanburg, Chester, Lancaster, Aiken, Richland, Sumter, Lee, Darlington, Dillon, Marion, Georgetown, Berkeley, Charleston and Colleton.

Dog-fighting arrests are increasing. In 2023, two people were arrested. In 2024, 60 people were arrested. So far this year, 54 people have been arrested. In 2024, 231 dogs were recovered. So far this year, 237 dogs have been recovered.

Keel said SLED agents are assigned to the agency’s dogfighting unit in every region in the state and work with local law enforcement agencies, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the American SPCA.

Dogfighters have a whole underground existence and are connected to each other around the state and nation, officials said. Dogfighters will carry their dogs to fights in different counties and different states, officials said.

The maximum penalty for dogfighting is $5,000 or five years in prison, or both.

“Let me be clear,” said Keel. “If you’re involved in dogfighting in South Carolina, we will find you, and we will arrest you. You will be held accountable.”

Also present at Monday’s press conference were Marion County Sheriff Brian Wallace and Dillon County Sheriff Jamie Hamilton.

If you have information regarding suspected dog fighting in South Carolina, report it to the SLED dogfighting Unit at tips@sled.sc.gov.