A SPANIARD aged 34 has been jailed for a year for stealing four endangered turtles worth thousands of euros from the Natura Parc animal park in Mallorca.

People are known to shell out as much as €2,500 each for the reptiles.

The creatures had been homed at the park after police confiscated 1,100 specimens from an ‘illegal’ hatchery run by a German couple.

A court heard that the defendant had hopped over a wall at the Santa Eugenia park during lockdown and scooped up the four turtles in a bucket.

CCTV captured the moment and recorded his car’s number plate, with police soon tracking him down and recovering the turtles.

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