A suspected murderer who was seen with a tiger that was freely roaming the streets has been arrested – but the big cat is still on the loose.

Victor Cuevas, 26, was taken into custody on Monday afternoon after leading police on a high-speed chase with a tiger in his vehicle the previous day. Cuevas managed to evade cops after fleeing with the same Bengal Tiger that was seen roaming around a neighborhood in Houston, Texas, on Sunday evening.

Video footage of the tiger on the loose showed the animal prowling gardens and wandering around unaccompanied, at about 8pm. The tiger was eventually taken into a house by a man wearing a white shirt, as seen in the footage, who has since been identified as Cuevas, reports ABC 7.

Cuevas is then said to have smuggled the tiger into the back of his jeep before fleeing from responding police, who tried to question him about the tiger’s appearance in the street.

He said: ‘The owner put the tiger in a white SUV and drove off from the scene, there was a brief pursuit, and the man got away with the tiger.

‘My main concern right now is focused on finding him, and finding the tiger, because what I don’t want him to do is harm the tiger. We have plenty of places where we can take the tiger and he can spend the rest of his life.’

Video of the incident shows off-duty police sergeant, Wes Manion, confronting the tiger before a man in a white shirt emerges from his house and grabs the tiger by its collar.

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‘An individual came out and said, “Don’t kill it, don’t kill it”, recalled Manion.

‘I didn’t know who this individual was, told him to get in the house. He stated that was his tiger, and I instructed him to take his tiger back inside, which he did.’

Houston Police believe the man in the white shirt was Cuevas, who later placed the tiger in his white Jeep and drove away at high speed, police said.

Officers attempted to pursue the vehicle but eventually lost sight of it, according to police.

Both Houston Police’s Animal Cruelty Unit and Houston’s Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care (BARC) are investigating the incident.

Cuevas, who is known to own several exotic animals, according to ABC 7, is accused of shooting and killing a man in July 2017 and is out on a $125,000 bond. It’s alleged the murder took place at a shopping center in Fort Bend County.

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