Employees at a Japanese child care center were recently concerned after a spate of shoe thefts occurred earlier this month.
One day, workers came to the school in the morning to find a total of 15 shoes belonging to 10 children gone missing, with more scattered around the building.
The school reported the incident to the Fukuoka Prefectural Police, and after several recurring thefts, the police installed security cameras to get to the bottom of the bizarre crime spree.
The video revealed that it was not a malicious actor but a sneaky weasel that had a taste for stinky feet. The same night the cameras were installed, the suspect returned around 7:30 pm, when the school was quiet, and quickly snatched a white sneaker from a cubby before running off with it.
One employee at the school said,
We were very worried, but now that we know it was an animal, we are relieved.
As for the police, they say they were also surprised to discover the identity of the culprit, saying,
We're relieved that the incident was not caused by a human, but this is the first case of its kind.
The stolen shoes have not yet been recovered, but the school has installed netting over the cubby holes at night to prevent the crime spree from continuing, as the suspect still remains at large.
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