Soda bandit

Some thieves are strange.

A Frenchman who stole an iron-wrought painted cockerel attached to an outdoor Catholic cross in the village of Bessan in southwestern France was bothered by his conscience and decided to return it.

Upon receiving a parcel containing the stolen weather vane in November, historian Michel Sabatery was surprised. It had been gone for 25 years when it suddenly surfaced.

Sabatery informed the mayor’s office, and an investigation ensued to find out how it disappeared in April 1999. Police quickly traced the sender through the information on the parcel since its postage was paid by the suspected thief using his credit card, Bessan Mayor Stephane Pepin-Bonet told Agence France-Presse.

Confronted by police, the thief, who was not identified, confessed that he had stolen the metal bird after a drunken party. Once he had sobered up, he felt too embarrassed to return it and hid it in his basement, prosecutor Raphael Balland said.

Nearly a quarter of a century later, the man, now in his late 40s, rediscovered the cockerel in the cellar and decided it was time to return it, according to AFP.

To his relief, the thief did not face charges as France’s statute of limitations
— six years for petty theft
— made him immune from prosecution.

Meanwhile, another thief struck at a gas station in Estepona, southern Spain.

The teenager, wearing a hoodie and a mask, threatened the store clerk at gunpoint and took 2,000 euros from the cash register on 2 January.

Before leaving the station, the robber took a soda from the display rack and paid for it, according to a police report.

The generosity was for naught as the thief and his accomplice, who had lent him the fake gun used in the robbery, were arrested two days later.