A 34 year old Palencia man was arrested last Monday after being caught red-handed stealing building materials from a residential construction site to build himself a house on a nearby plot.

It subsequently emerged that the same man had recently stolen a complete fitted kitchen, as well as a number of other expensive white goods, from one of his neighbours the day after it had all been installed.

A later search uncovered building materials worth around €25,000 euros including cement, bricks, a small crane, two sets of professional soldering equipment, scaffolding, a fork-lift truck, and several small trolleys.

It also turned out that the man had been driving himself around in a van despite having had his driving licence temporarily confiscated for a traffic violation.