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[00:00.00]Police suspected someone was stealing shoes from a children's school in southwestern Japan.

[00:09.35]But a security camera caught the thief in action. It was a weasel!

[00:16.40]The small animal with a long body and short legs usually hunts for rats and rabbits.

[00:24.45]But this one was hunting for children's shoes.

[00:29.46]After the children's shoes began disappearing, police put in place three security cameras in the school in Fukuoka in southern Japan.

[00:41.27]Soon after, recorded video showed a weasel with a small shoe in its mouth.

[00:48.69]"It's great it turned out not to be a human being," Deputy Police Chief Hiroaki Inada told The Associated Press recently.

[01:00.05]Teachers and parents had feared the thief could be a person with mental health problems.

[01:07.31]Japanese often take their shoes off before entering homes.

[01:13.36]The shoes that disappeared were all slip-ons the children wore indoors, stored in special spaces near the door.

[01:23.64]Weasels are known to hide items. People who keep weasels as pets give them toys so they can hide them.

[01:33.87]The weasel moved shoes around and took 15 of them before police were called.

[01:41.75]Six more were taken the following day.

[01:46.01]The weasel returned to steal one more shoe.

[01:50.27]The video of that theft was seen the next day.

[01:55.22]The shoe-loving weasel only took the white indoor shoes made of canvas, likely because they are light to carry.

[02:04.45]"We were so relieved," the school's kindergarten director Yoshihide Saito told Japanese broadcaster RKB Mainichi Broadcasting.

[02:17.54]The children got a good laugh when they saw the weasel in the video.

[02:23.23]Although the stolen shoes were never found, the remaining shoes are now safely behind netting that covers the storage spaces.

[02:34.09]The weasel, which is believed to be wild, is still on the loose.

[02:41.39]I'm John Russell.

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Words in This Story

slip-on - n. a shoe without fastenings

pet -- n. a domesticated animal kept for pleasure

relieved - adj. experiencing or showing relief especially from anxiety or emotions that have built up

kindergarten - n. a school or class for children who are usually five to six years old

netting -- n. material consisting of pieces of string or rope that are woven together

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