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The animal cruelty unit of the New York Police Department reached the spot while the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals took the cats into its custody for necropsies. [Representational Image]

A man found more than 40 frozen dead cats in a storage unit he won at an auction for $150 in New York's Long Island City in the United States earlier this week.

In one of the freezers, the cats were kept on aluminium trays one on top of the other, while the second freezer contained cats wrapped in paper and plastic bags. One of the cats was skinned lying on a catering platter.

The man had attended the sale organised by the American Self-Storage Facility for abandoned storage lockers following which he went to check the storage unit he had purchased. When he opened it, he found over 40 dead cats.

The animal cruelty unit of the New York Police Department reached the spot, while the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals took the cats into its custody for necropsies — autopsies for pets, the Press Trust of India reported citing the New York Daily News. Officers had to take a shower and change their clothes because the "stench was stuck to their clothes."

A police source said that there was no stench when the freezers were closed but once it was opened, there was a "horrendous death smell, rotting."