#Tourist slapped with $1,000 fine after taking sand from beach

Sand snatching has become increasingly common in Sardinia

A French tourist’s attempt to take the beach home with him backfired after he was fined $1,000 for smuggling Italian sand in his luggage.

The unnamed man was busted Sept. 1 at Sardinia’s Cagliari Elmas Airport with a bottle containing 4.4 pounds of sand from the picturesque island.

“The bottle was confiscated and is in now in our operating room where we hold these confiscated items,” a spokesman for the island’s forestry police told CNN about the gritty crime.

Since 2017, it has been illegal to snatch sand from Sardinia’s beaches, with penalties including jail time and fines between $600 and $3,550, depending on the amount and from where it was taken.

The heavy-sanded measures were imposed in response to beachgoers increasingly plundering Sardinia’s shores for granules — especially the pink and white variety, reports Travel & Leisure. They then either hold onto the sand as a keepsake or sell it as a souvenir.

Sand stealing has “become a very known phenomenon here in Europe,” said the spokesperson, adding that “at the end of the year we usually have many bottles of sand accumulated.”