This image made from security camera video released by Kasuya Polic

Shoe mystery solved as camera catches weasel in the act | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis

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2024-11-26 18:30:06

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)

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.