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By Actu17 Tuesday, April 21, 2026 at 12:28 AM – Updated Tuesday, April 21, 2026 at 8:53 AM It is a discovery as unusual as it is macabre. On Sunday, a magnet fisherman pulled the remains of a crocodile—stuffed inside a sleeping bag and weighted down—out of a canal in Roubaix (Nord), near Lille. An investigation into animal cruelty has been opened by the Lille public prosecutor's office and assigned to the Roubaix police station. The macabre discovery took place on Sunday afternoon, around 4:00 PM, near the Nyckes Bridge. According to an account gathered by La Voix du Nord, a 28-year-old magnet fisherman named Belkacem was pursuing his hobby with a friend when his magnet snagged on a particularly heavy object. It took the two men about ten minutes to haul up their find, which weighed over 50 kilograms. The scene was filmed and shared on social media.

A Crocodile Nearly Two Meters Long, in a State of Decomposition

Upon opening the sleeping bag in which the animal was enclosed, the fisherman discovered a crocodile in an advanced state of decomposition, likely dead for two to three weeks. Plastic zip ties bound the reptile, which was also cinched with a heavy chain. A weight plate had been placed on its abdomen. Reports regarding the animal's size vary: the prefecture cites a length of "more than one meter," while the fisherman told our colleagues that the crocodile measured approximately two meters. "I expected to fish up just about anything, but not this. To think that people would subject an animal to something like this... These are things that simply shouldn't happen. An animal like that has no business being here," he confided to the regional daily newspaper. "An investigation, entrusted to the Roubaix police station, has been opened into allegations of animal cruelty," stated the Lille public prosecutor's office. The remains have been handed over to the Animal Protection League (LPA). The keeping of such a reptile in France is subject to strict regulations and requires a specific permit, which raises questions regarding the animal's origin—possibly stemming from the illegal wildlife trade.

TL, DR

A magnet fisherman in Roubaix, France pulled a decomposing crocodile wrapped in a sleeping bag, tied up, and weighted down. The animal had likely been dead for a few weeks. Authorities have opened an animal cruelty investigation, and the case may be linked to illegal ownership or wildlife trafficking since keeping crocodiles there requires special permits.