A man from southeastern Turkey’s Mardin was fined TL 60,163 for "harming biological diversity" by hoarding live scorpions.

The police raided Hekim Çaka’s house in Mardin’s Kızıltepe district following a tip-off. Officers found 217 live scorpions in plastic containers from Çaka’s basement.

Police seized the scorpions and handed them over to the provincial directorate-general for nature conservation and national parks, who in turn fined Çaka for harming the region's biodiversity.

Çaka claimed he invested TL 50,000 to turn his basement into a scorpion farm and didn’t know collecting them was a punishable offense.