Guardian is pretty late with this article. This case was hot in Czech media in July 2018.
I will try to write a longer piece of text to get it all into perspective.
Basically, Czech people adore exotic animals and plants. During commie time, when people were prohibited to travel abroad (and many other activities), breeding parrots or tropical fish or tortoises or grow cacti was popular mass hobby. List of kept species was limited (because importing from abroad was very restricted) and local breeders/growers thus over time became quite skilled to reproduce almost anything new species what they could get their hands on.
When 1990s came and the country openend to the world, local breeders were amazed on all now available new species and pretty wild period came with A LOT of illegal imports of everything possible. We were not signatory part of CITES and later when we signed it, it took a decade to implement it in local law. Offical registry of kept CITES animals started in 2004 and all animals acquired prior to it were deemed legal. Also private ownership of "dangerous" animals started to be regulated only in year 2009 - this includes also large cats.
Paralel to it is development of Czech state circuses. When revolution in 1989 came, it was followed by large restructuralisation, economic collaps and sort of chaos and state circuses dissappeared. Some were overtaken by private circus families, but many just ceased to exist and their many animals, often large cats and bears became homeless. Some were put down, some got into local zoos or sanctuaries, some got into private hands.
With time, this country overcame chaos and entered first large economic boom prior to 2007. Local people got richer and instead of a tortoise or parakeet, they now could afford to keep larger animals if only they had space and money. It could be wallabies, lamas, macaques, crocodile or large parrot. But also large cats. Local private circuses were breeding their large cats (primarily to have new animals for their own programs) and some of those young ones were bought by oversealous (and often naive) private keepers. And when these animals matured, they were bred. You can see where it´s heading.
After 2007 crisis we have now strong economic growth again. Average wealth of people grows and also number of private large cats grows. How many cats are kept outside licensed zoos in Czech republic? It is currently registered ca 210 lions, 130 tigers, 130 cougars, few leopards and jaguars outside zoos. And so these once luxurious animals slowly turn into a headache. Kittens are sweet and can be still often sold to new owners if hand tame or offered to be cuddled for money. But when they grow up, it becomes harder to place them.
And now we are around year 2013. One large cat owner who is from old circus family, has very large animal collection and trains animals that can be rented to film productions, theater, circus etc. He runs also a small zoo with all sorts of animals, but you can also pet tiger and lion kittens. When they grow up, he usually succeeds to sell them abroad or into private, but some not and he has space problem. So he sells few left over adult animals to taxidermist (after shooting them). A local Vietnamese mafia )that completely dominates local drug production and distribution BTW) sees it and finds tiger bones and meat extract to be much more valuable and profitable than traditional skin. And so new line of business starts.
TLDR: Czech republic has many private large cat owners. One of them started to cooperate with Vietnamese mafia and sold some carcasses to them (via taxidermist).
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