The employee was on shift at the power plant in Hesse, central Germany, on Tuesday when he noticed a bin bag hanging from a rake in the grounds. Upon opening it, he found it contained 20 dead snakes, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported on Wednesday.

Police from the nearby Dillenburg area believe that they had been put in the bag alive, before being left to die. Ten of the snakes were just weeks old. There are no clues at this point as to who is behind the incident.

On Tuesday in nearby Frankfurt, a woman was arrested for theft on a train. She allegedly stole €300 from a fellow passenger on the journey from Mainz to Frankfurt. But when police searched her backpack at Frankfurt train station they found a bag that appeared to be wriggling. They opened it to find seven live snakes – three of which were pythons. The other four were corn snakes.

The 37-year-old Berliner, who had managed to steal €300 in cash from a fellow passenger, claimed she knew nothing about the snakes, so police called a vet.

The Local/jcw