A 19-year-old man faces three months to five years in prison for stealing a horse and trying to hide it in his apartment on the third floor of a residential building.

When police officers in Wejherowo, Poland, received an emergency call about a man trying to lead a horse to the upper floors of a local apartment building, they thought it was a clever prank. However, the person on the other end of the line was not laughing. They insisted that there was a grown horse on the staircase of their building making its way up, and the residents needed police assistance. Police reluctantly sent out a crew to investigate, but they were shocked to find that the caller’s story checked out. There was indeed a full-grown horse being led to the upper floors of the apartment building by a young man who appeared to be arguing with disgruntled neighbors trying to stop him.

“A young man was trying to lead a mare into the stairwell of a multi-family building,” Anetta Potrykus, a spokeswoman from the District Police Headquarters in Wejherowo, told Radio Gdansk.

Officers later learned that the unnamed resident trying to lead the horse into his third-floor apartment had stolen the animal and was trying to conceal it, in case someone came asking about it. He apparently never considered how conspicuous that operation would be, or how he would keep a full-grown mare in his two-bedroom apartment if he managed to get it through the front door.

Police officers estimated the price of the horse at around 15,000 Polish zloti ($3,800). They managed to get the animal back to the owner – who had already reported it stolen – safe and sound.

As for the 19-year-old genius who tried to hide the stolen horse in his apartment, he has been charged with theft and risks spending up to five years behind bars.

Oddity Central