Fowl play: The criminals stealing elite racing pigeons

Tom Van Gaver awoke to find that someone had broken in and swiped his most prized possession, a 1-pound pigeon named Finn. The untrained eye wouldn't detect anything special in the 11-inch-tall pigeon, but Finn was incredibly quick and strong. By the time he was 1, he had won multiple championships in Belgium. He was a flying Secretariat — and a priceless stud. Van Gaver sold Finn's offspring for up to $100,000 each. "It's like the Mona Lisa from the pigeon sport they stole," Van Gaver said. The black-and-white surveillance video from November 2024 shows a masked thief carefully inspecting and stuffing seven of Van Gaver's pigeons into a bag. Van Gaver said in court filings that, in all, the value of the stolen birds was more than $1.6 million. Finn's abduction was among 35 pigeon robberies across Belgium over the last three years, part of an avian crime wave that has spread to Great Britain, South Africa and the United States, perpetrated by what insiders call the "pigeon mafia." Pigeon racing There's more to pigeons than their reputation as the "rats of the sky." Pigeons have an extraordinary ability to find their nests despite traveling vast distances, a homing instinct so reliable it was first used in ancient Egypt and was still being relied upon by militaries as recently as World War II. The quickest pigeons average about 60 miles per hour, hitting 100 mph with strong tail winds. Pigeon racing began in Belgium in the 1800s. …