Stolen shoe mystery solved at Japanese kindergarten when security camera catches weasel in the act

This image made from security camera video released by Kasuya Police shows a weasel with a shoe at a kindergarten in Koga, Fukuoka prefecture, southwestern Japan, on Nov. 11, 2024. (Kasuya Police via AP)

TOKYO (AP) - Police thought a shoe thief was on the loose at a kindergarten in southwestern Japan, until a security camera caught the furry culprit in action.

A weasel with a tiny shoe in its mouth was spotted on the video footage after police installed three cameras in the school in the prefecture of Fukuoka.

"It's great it turned out not to be a human being," Deputy Police Chief Hiroaki Inada told The Associated Press Sunday. Teachers and parents had feared it could be a disturbed person with a shoe fetish.

Japanese customarily take their shoes off before entering homes. The vanished shoes were all slip-ons the children wore indoors, stored in cubbyholes near the door.

Weasels are known to stash items and people who keep weasels as pets give them toys so they can hide them.

The weasel scattered shoes around and took 15 of them before police were called. Six more were taken the following day. The weasel returned Nov. 11 to steal one more shoe. The camera footage of that theft was seen the next day.

The shoe-loving weasel only took the white indoor shoes made of canvas, likely because they're light to carry.

"We were so relieved," Gosho Kodomo-en kindergarten director Yoshihide Saito told Japanese broadcaster RKB Mainichi Broadcasting.

The children got a good laugh when they saw the weasel in the video.

Although the stolen shoes were never found, the remaining shoes are now safe at the kindergarten with nets installed over the cubbyholes.

The weasel, which is believed to be wild, is still on the loose.