‘It says I have money’

The first rule of Monkey Club is…

Smuggled spider monkeys are being turned into social media stars, paraded wearing hats and human clothes by their Mexican owners – prompting condemnation from animal rights groups.

Exotic pets have long been associated with drug kingpins, well known for flaunting their wealth in extravagant ways, in Central and South America.

But now the trend is catching on with anyone in Mexico’s wealthy set, leading to whole Monkey Clubs springing up across the country.

Videos posted to TikTok by Club Monkey Culiacan – based in Sinaloa, a state best known for its ties to drug lord Joaquin El Chapo Guzman – show 19-pound spider monkeys dancing and playing in ruffled dresses.

One video shows a female spider monkey in a pink dress wrestling with her brother, wearing green shorts with suspenders. 

Another video shows a monkey at an over-the-top birthday party with live bands, elaborate balloon displays and horses – all thrown for a fellow primate.

TikTok videos for the one-year birthday party of the spider monkey, named Kira Sophia as her owner, went viral with more than two million views.

The animals, illegal to keep as pets, are smuggled from the jungles further south.

And, owning one has become a status symbol.

“So many people here have them. It’s fashionable. It says: ‘I have the money to have a monkey,” 34-year-old florist Zulma Ayala told The Los Angeles Times, who investigated the practice in Culiacan.

Spider monkeys aren’t the only wild animals trending in the town, home to some of Mexico’s wealthiest people.

The trend– memorialized in Scarface with Tony Montana’s pet tiger and fueled by stories of Pablo Escobar’s famous menagerie, complete with zebras, giraffes, hippos and elephants — has caught on among cartel leaders, according to the Los Angeles Times.

A recent U.S. indictment accused the sons of El Chapo – currently serving life in federal prison in the US for his crimes – of feeding their enemies “dead or alive” to tigers. 

By now the trend has spread far beyond the cartels. In another popular social media video, a girl walked a pet tiger on a leash down a public street in the middle of the day.

A video also showed a tiger popping its head out of the top of a car.

Animal rights groups like Born Free USA strongly condemn exotic pet ownership.

“I can’t imagine wearing a tutu and being put on a leash feels good to an animal whose entire instinct is to be free in the wild,” Angela Grimes, CEO of Born Free USA, told The Post.

The Mexican government specifically outlaws ownership of spider monkeys because the native species is critically endangered, but other exotic animals, such as lions, tigers and bears, are allowed.

Mexican law dictates that for an exotic animal to be legally owned, the animal must be born in captivity, safely confined and treated with respect. But a shortage of inspectors results in lax enforcement, according to the LA Times report.

Ernesto Zazueta, director of the Ostok Sanctuary on the outskirts of Culiacan, told the Los Angeles-based paper that the sanctuary was caring for a tiger who had been shot two to three times in the face and shoulder during a gunfight. The sanctuary also houses hippos leftover from Pablo Escobar’s famed zoo. 

Grimes said moving to a sanctuary is the best of several bad options for wild animals who have been kept in captivity.

“They are able to live a much better life in a sanctuary, but it’s certainly not what they deserve,” Grimes said.

Grimes said to tame most animals, they have to be taken from their mother at a very early age, which causes permanent physical and emotional trauma to the animals.

“It becomes a public safety hazard,” Grimes said.

Even the monkey club members have noticed this.

The group said in a TikTok post that the monkeys will “express” themselves by biting, scratching and exhibiting other aggressive behaviors in the first few months of ownership.

“They’re being forced to live an unnatural life, so they are going to act out. I have to wonder then, how do those people move that behavior? Is it through punishment, by punishing the animal so they learn that if they bite and scratch they will be hurt? This puts the animal under even more stress because they have to act in unnatural ways,” Grimes said.

“They should never be kept as pets,” Grimes added.