Three men are fac­ing $810,000 in fines af­ter they were caught by the po­lice trans­port­ing 81 birds out of the Ce­dros area.

Po­lice be­lieve the men bought the birds, in­clud­ing bullfinch­es, pi­coplats and a yel­low-head­ed par­rot, which is a pro­tect­ed an­i­mal, on the black mar­ket.

The men who re­side at Pe­tit Bourg, San Juan and Aranguez were go­ing to sell the birds.

Of­fi­cers at­tached to the Cap-de-Ville Po­lice Post in Point Fortin re­ceived in­for­ma­tion which led them to the Ce­dros area.

Around 10.30 am, the of­fi­cers, led by Cpl Bood­hai, stopped a white car with three oc­cu­pants, two aged 20 and a 23-years-old mar­ket ven­dor.

Up­on search­ing the car po­lice found a cage with 60 pi­coplats, an­oth­er cage with 20 bullfinch­es and a box with a par­rot.

The men were ar­rest­ed and tak­en to the sta­tion, along with the birds and the car. Se­nior game war­dens Steve Seep­er­sad and Andy Singh went to the sta­tion af­ter they were con­tact­ed by the po­lice.

The men were charged joint­ly with 80 counts of keep­ing birds in an un­der­sized cage and pos­ses­sion of a pro­tect­ed an­i­mal with­out a li­cence.

Each of­fence car­ries a max­i­mum fine of $10,000. Guardian Me­dia was told that the price on the black mar­ket for a bullfinch can range from $300 up­wards de­pend­ing on how good it could whis­tle; $250 for a pi­coplat and $1,000 for the par­rot.

The birds were hand­ed over to of­fi­cials from the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo who will make arrange­ments to have the birds tak­en to the Point Fortin Mag­is­trates Court to­day where the three men are ex­pect­ed to ap­pear.