Treasure hunters dug up a protected sand dune reserve after influencers buried €1,000 (£850) and challenged their followers to find it in Gran Canaria.
The money was buried in the dunes of Maspalomas, in the municipality of San Bartolomé de Tirajana, in the south of the island.
A group of influencers posted a video saying: “Let’s get the 1,000 euros!”
Excited crowds then gathered to search for a briefcase containing the money, which was buried to advertise a concert.
Supporters flocked to the site armed with spades and shovels to search for the money, news site Tiempo de Canarias reported.
A group could be seen running across the sand towards the hidden briefcase before digging with spades and bare hands.
A group could be seen running across the Maspalomas dunes towards the hidden briefcase before digging with spades and bare hands
The dunes of Maspalomas in the municipality of San Bartolomé de Tirajana in the south of the island
“We received 1,000 euros to promote the event and instead of burning it in TV commercials, we will hide it all over the island,” the promotional video says.
“Whoever finds it first gets to keep it.”
The municipality of Gran Canaria is investigating the incident that occurred on Saturday in the nature reserve in a protected area and is preparing a complaint to be submitted to the public prosecutor's office, according to Tiempo de Canarias.
The company marketing the concert is also under investigation, The Times reports.
The DN7 Festival has hired a collective of social media activists to promote the event.
They are accused of ignoring the fact that the reserve is a protected area with a unique and fragile ecosystem, the newspaper says.
In September, authorities vowed to take particularly tough action against visitors who break the law by having sex in the dunes, which can cause damage to the stunning but fragile ecosystem. However, a high proportion of the swingers were British.
Officials on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria are targeting swingers, believed to be a high proportion of Brits, in the sand dunes
The tiny island off Africa's northwest coast, part of the eight-strong Canary Islands archipelago and long a favorite of sun-starved Brits, has been handing out record fines to outdoor sex tourists since the practice became popular after the pandemic.
A local government official was quoted by Spanish-language media as saying, as authorities began formulating a plan to stop all outdoor sex, “Since the end of the pandemic, people have gone crazy.”
Research by Professor Patrick Hesp of Flinders University in Australia found that there are an astonishing nearly 300 “cruise hotspots” in the 1,000-hectare Maspalomas Dunes Nature Reserve in the tourist town of Playa del Ingles in Maspalomas, southern Gran Canaria.
The dunes – a major tourist attraction – are home to unique plant and animal species, and shrubs help anchor the ever-moving sand and prevent it from blowing into the nearby Atlantic Ocean.
Authorities vowed to crack down particularly hard on visitors who break the law by having sex in the dunes, which can cause damage to the stunning but fragile ecosystem
But it has been warned that tourists stripping among the bushes for sex with strangers are not only damaging plant life, but also scaring away birds and lizards and leaving behind piles of beer cans, cigarette butts and used condoms.
In 2000, measures were introduced to control the crowds of dune visitors. Environmental officials patrolled the area and issued fines of around 150 euros to anyone caught moving outside the cordoned off areas.
But last year, as tourism surged after two years of Covid travel restrictions, the number of fines increased six-fold to 120, compared to just 20 in 2022, local authorities said.
Tourists and foreign residents in Playa del Inglés outsmarted environmental officials by tipping each other off about where and when they would see them and when they would leave the area, according to posts from sex groups on Facebook.
Some pointed out that it was “safe” to go to the dunes for casual sex after 2 or 3 p.m., when patrol officers got off work.