LA police have busted a man suspected of having released a full-sized alligator into the city's Lake Machado two months ago and which has since frustrated all attempts to recapture it.

Alleged former alligator owner Anthony Brewer, 36, was cuffed at his home on Tuesday, where law enforcement officials found "make-shift alligator habitat, two snapping turtles" and unspecified drugs, Reuters reports. The cops then swooped on Brewer's pal Todd Natow, 42, discovering an impressive haul of "three alligators, four piranhas, three desert tortoises, six tortoise eggs, one rattlesnake, a scorpion and marijuana".

The police reckon Brewer gave the 'gator to Natow who subsequently dumped it into the 53-acre lake. Park rangers and out-of-state "professional 'gator wranglers" have since been trying to snare the beast, without success. ®