Man kept 12 large reptiles in house

Police have discovered 11 Nile crocodiles – five of them squeezed into a small shower – and an alligator at a house.

They were searching the villa of a German man suspected of fraud in the northern town of Lapscheure when they came across the reptiles. Five were found squeezed into a dirty shower; five others were kept in an aquarium made for only two, and the alligator was rolled up in several blankets. "They were really kept in horrible conditions," said Frederik Thoelen, a biologist at the Nature Rescue Centre, where they are now being kept.

AP