Residents in one Berlin neighborhood were bemused when their shoes began vanishing. The prolific shoe thief turned out to be a fashion-conscious fox with a passion for footwear
A fox has stolen around 100 shoes from people's homes in Berlin's southwestern Zehlendorf neighborhood, according to local media reports.
All types of footwear had started disappearing from outside homes in the district, including slippers and sandals as well as sneakers, before the unlikely thief was unmasked by local resident Christian Meyer.
Meyer initially noticed his running shoes had disappeared and posted an inquiry on Germany's community noticeboard-sharing platform Nebenan.de, reported Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel.
After posting, it became apparent that his were not the only shoes to have vanished in the area.
Mystery solved
Meyer later spotted the fox on a patch of wasteland in the district and managed to snap a picture of the creature "caught red-handed with a pair of blue flip flops in his mouth."
Meyer also uncovered the fox's haul of multicolored footwear.
Sadly, Meyer has yet to find his lost running shoes, but three other pairs have been successfully reclaimed by their owners.
