Police remove crocodile from Guanacaste river where tourists swam

Swimmers in Guanacaste had an unwelcome sunbather at the beach, the National Police reported on Wednesday.

The leathery-skinned beach bum wasn’t a sunburned Gringo but a 3.5-meter-long crocodile.

Police responded to a call that the croc had appeared swimming in the Cañas River in Guanacaste near where some 50 swimmers and tourists were enjoying the riverbank.

With the assistance of some fearless locals, authorities wrangled the reptile and handed it over to the Environment Ministry. The croc was loaded onto a truck and sent to a wildlife refuge administered by the ministry.

Shorts, no shirt and old tennis shoes – that's how you wrangle a croc in Costa Rica. Courtesy Fuerza Pública