The man, who was not been named by the Italian island’s authorities, was caught at the airport with a bottle containing around two kilograms of sand.

The bottle was confiscated and the man was issued with a €1,000 (roughly £900) fine under a 2017 regional law, CNN reports.

A spokesperson for Sardinia’s Forest Rangers said they have become “much more rigorous” since 2017 in policing the theft of sand from the island’s beaches.

“The sanctions are much more serious [now],” he said. “We work with the police and they alert us.”