BERLIN (AP) – German police seized cooked bats and nearly a ton of unrefrigerated fish when they stopped a van that had entered the country from Belgium, authorities said Wednesday. Federal police said a patrol on Monday stopped the vehicle at a highway exit on the edge of the border city of Aachen, and Sesso Webcam found the bats under the fish.
A vet from the local consumer protection office was sent to the scene and ordered the bats and fish confiscated. Police seized the van, which was uninsured. The 31-year-old driver, an Ivorian citizen, faced a criminal complaint for traffic offenses and unauthorized entry because he entered the country without papers or a driver’s license, police said .
He also faces administrative proceedings for violations of food hygiene rules, and local authorities were looking into whether he violated conservation laws relating to the bats. A court in Aachen on Tuesday ordered the driver held in custody pending his handover to authorities in Italy, where he was registered as living.