When the Amsterdam Centrum-Jordaan police were called in to a casino in the area earlier this week, the thought they were to deal with a difficult customer. But at the scene, the situation turned out to be quite different - they had to deal with a massive snake.
"At the bag check a woman appeared to be carrying something very strange with her. She had a huge snake in her bag!! Not really something to walk around in public with in the evening hours", the police said on Facebook.
A passerby made a remarkable discovery while jogging in Tienhoven on Sunday morning. He found a lion cub in a small cage in a meadow on Burgemeester Huijdecoperweg. The police believe the young animal was dumped there. They're looking for witnesses.
The Dutch food and consumer product safety authority NVWA is investigating, because they have more experience in this field, the police said on Facebook.
An employee of a parking manager at Schiphol was arrested with his girlfriend in Gorredijk, Friesland. They were caught using the home of people who were on vacation and had left their car with the parking manager. The residents of the home had no idea, Omrop Fryslan reports.
According to the broadcaster, an observant neighbor noticed the lights on in his neighbors' home, which he was watching while they are on vacation. There was also a strange car in the driveway. He knocked on the door and a strange man opened. The man told him that he had permission to stay there.
Authorities in the picturesque village of Giethoorn are trying to track down reports of fake police officers luring and robbing Chinese tourists. Police say they are looking to speak with any victims and witnesses of similar robberies.
Police say they are trying to track down two or three light complected young men with dark hair. The suspects have used a dark colored four-door sedan, not a hatchback, in the robberies. Each robbery took place in the afternoon, but police did not specify the dates of the crimes.
A woman fell through the sidewalk in the Limburg village of Merkelbeek, near Brunssum, on Friday morning. She was walking with her husband when the ground suddenly sank away beneath her. She was injured, NOS reports.
The sinkhole was caused by sand being washed away by a leak, the fire brigade and Water Maatschappij Limburg confirmed. "There was an underground leak" a spokesperson for WML said to the broadcaster. "As a result it was impossible to see that there was a hole. The woman indeed fell through it and was taken to hospital with unknown injuries."
Hundreds of people on Twitter are looking for 6-year-old Marit from Utrecht. She threw a message in a bottle into the sea and it washed ashore on Ameland. The finder wants to let the girl know that her message has been found, RTL Nieuws reports.
The Utrecht girl threw her bottle into the sea during a sailing trip to Terschelling with her parents and sister. In the letter Marit wrote that she is very curious to know who will find her letter and where it would end up.
An Ommen resident had a very unexpected visitor on Wednesday afternoon. An elephant wandered into his garden and started eating his pear tree. The man called the police, and after convincing them that he was not joking, police officers responded to the scene.
"On the way to the address - in the outskirts of Ommen - we wondered how in heavens name we were supposed to catch an elephant. This was a first for us", the Ommen police said on Facebook.
A balcony fell off a second floor apartment on Westindischekade in Groningen on Wednesday morning. No one was injured. Housing association Lefier will inspect the other balconies in the apartment building to see if any others are at risk of collapsing, RTV Noord reports.
On Tuesday evening the fire department rescued a 9-year-old boy from the roof of a building on Baron G.A. Tindaplein in Amsterdam. The kid climbed onto the roof "like some kind of Spiderman", but couldn't make his own way down, the Amsterdam Oost Zeeburg police said on Facebook.
According to the police, the boy climbed to the roof using windowsills around 9:00 p.m. Why exactly the young daredevil did so, is not clear.
The fire department eventually rescued the boy with a ladder truck. He was home just before dark, the police said.
The Arnhem police spent Sunday afternoon searching the forest at a playground on Engelenburgstraat for a so-called killer clown. The man dressed as a scary clown harassed eight children at the playground earlier in the day. He had knives with him, according to one child. The clown wasn't found, AD reports
Anyone who hangs a hammock in an Amsterdam park could face a fine of 230 euros, Amsterdam resident Lars Duursma found out over the weekend, he told AT5.
Duursma and his girlfriend hung their hammock in Sarphatipark on Saturday. According to him, they were not drunk and did not cause any trouble. Two enforcement officers appeared and told them to remove the hammock, or face a fine of 230 euros.
The enforcement officers told them that it has been a rule for years that you are not allowed to attach anything to a tree or lamppost anywhere in the city.
An animal skull was found hanging at a bus stop in the Utrecht town of Abcoude on Thursday night. The skull was hanging on a string over a trash can on Burgemeester des Tombeweg, AD reports.
Due to the strange nature of the situation, the police were called. Officers removed the skull - a cow skull - and took it to a police station.
Who hung the skull at the bus shelter, and why, is not clear.
A streetlight is standing in the middle of Klaverstraat in Nijmegen. The street was widened, but the streetlight was left where it was. As a result, it is now located in the middle of the road, blocking the way for cars, Omroep Gelderland reports.
A local resident told the broadcaster, that the workers who widened the street knew that the streetlight can't be left in the middle of the road, but also weren't allowed to move it.
A car lost its back wheels after driving over a bump in Breda on Thursday morning. This happened in the curve towards Fellenoordstraat, Omroep Brabant reports.
With great difficulty, the driver managed to park the car in a disabled parking spot, with the car's bumper on the street behind it and the axle with the back wheels beside it.
In a strange coincidence, two hot air balloons made unplanned landings in Tilburg on Tuesday. One landed in a small field in the middle of a residential area, the other landed on a football field a few minutes later. The two precautionary landings seem to be unrelated, Omroep Brabant reports.
Eight year old Sofie spent an entire 60 seconds hanging from a raised boom, meters above the ground, in Spaarndam on Wednesday afternoon. Quite a terrifying experience for bystanders and the lock keeper. But the girl herself was unfazed. She came down with a big smile on her face, Marcel Kraan said, according to NOS.
Franeker smells like caramel on Friday morning. According to the fire brigade, this is due to an overnight fire in a candy factory in the Friesland city, ANP reports.
A fire broke out in candy factory Royal Steensma during the early hours of Friday morning. The burning sugar caused a caramel-like smell in the air.
The Royal Steensma building was destroyed by the fire. No one was injured. The fire is under control
Three different hand grenades were found along the IJsselsteinlaan in Utrecht on Wednesday afternoon. The discovery prompted the evacuation of the Hoograven neighborhood and a nearby police station.
The two men who said they found the grenades were taken into custody.
Both men said they spotted packages on the street and decided to throw them away. At least two were dumped in an underground garbage container, but for unknown reasons the men brought one package to the police station.
A houseboat on Oegstgeesterweg in Leiden is sinking due to a leak. Despite enormous effort by the fire department, the house boat can not be saved, the fire brigade said on Twitter on Monday morning. The family living in the houseboat got out unharmed, NU.nl reports.
The fire department started pumping water out of the houseboat around 5:50 a.m. on Monday. But the water put so much pressure on the houseboat that the shore anchor broke, making the houseboat unstable.
Emergency services responded to Paddepoelsterweg in Groningen en masse on Sunday after a passerby reported a body in the water. Closer inspection revealed that it was not a person at all, but a realistic sex doll, the police said on Twitter.
A passerby reported the 'body' around 3:45 p.m. on Sunday. Emergency services responded with a large number of personnel, because clothes were also found on the side of the water, according to ANP. Boating traffic in the area was halted for a time.
Two king pythons were found dumped on the street in a residential neighborhood in Amsterdam on Saturday, according to Animal Ambulance Amsterdam.
The animal ambulance responded ot the residential neighborhood after receiving a report of "two large snakes" on the street. Rescuers were deployed, expecting to find grass snakes that naturally occur in Amsterdam. "On arrival we did not find grass snakes, but two king pythons." Animal Ambulance Amsterdam said on Facebook.
The police arrested a homeless Russian man in the Haagse Bos on Sunday afternoon after he was caught barbecuing an endangered blue heron, the Overbosch police said on Facebook.
Police officers responded to the Haagse Bos after receiving multiple calls about an open fire in the forest. "That is of course not allowed and despite the snow there is a considerable risk that something like that gets out of hand", the police wrote.
Michael Wolff, the author of the bestseller Fire & Fury biography about US President Donald Trump, has canceled his interviews with Dutch media scheduled for Friday, multiple media outlets report. Newspaper NU.nl said that the writer was disappointed at the way he was treated by television presenter Twan Huys and his audience during his interview on College Tour Thursday night.
A 4-year-old girl brought to the Netherlands in 2016 will not be deported to Liberia. Her lawyer told RTL Nieuws that the young girl was approved for a residence permit.
Now living in Waddinxveen, Dekontee "Deedee" Elisha Grigsby was originally born in England. Custody was given to her great-grandmother, a Dutch national, with her mother unable to provide care. After her birth, the girl was brought to Liberia, where the family has roots.
