Butterfly thieves  handed $200000 fine | Google live news | BBC news - video Dailymotion

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00:00An Italian father and his son have been fined 60 million Sri Lankan rupees

00:04$200,000, £150,000 for trying to smuggle hundreds of endemic insects,

00:11including 92 species of butterflies, out of a safari park.

00:16Rangers at Yala National Park arrested Luigi Ferrari, 68, and his 28-year-old son Matia on

00:23the 8th of May this year after they were found with jars containing the insects.

00:28The men had lured the insects with animal attractants and planned on using

00:31wax sachets to chemically preserve them, investigations show.

00:36They were convicted in early September of illegal collection, possession and

00:40transportation of the insects, and handed the highest-ever fine for wildlife crime in the

00:45country. One of the park rangers, K. Sujeeva Nishantha, told BBC Sinhala that on the day

00:52of the incident, a safari jeep driver had informed his team of rangers that a

00:56suspicious car was parked along the road and that the two men who were in it had ventured

01:01into the forest with insect nets. The rangers located the car and found hundreds of jars

01:07containing the insects in its trunk. All the insects were dead when we found them.

01:12They put a chemical in the bottles, Mr Nishantha said. There were more than 300 animals.

01:19The men were initially slapped with 810 charges, but these were later reduced to 304.

01:25They could face two years in jail if they fail to pay the fine by the 24th of September.

01:31Italian news reports say the men were on vacation in Sri Lanka at the time and have been held in

01:36the country since the incident. Yala National Park, located in the country's southeast,

01:42is one of Sri Lanka's most popular wildlife parks, home to a high concentration of leopards,

01:48elephants and buffaloes, among other animals.