A cat burglar dubbed the "Heisei Ninja" who was wanted by police for more than 200 break-ins over the space of nearly nine years in Osaka is believed to have finally been unmasked as a pensioner.

Police in Japan's second city had been baffled and embarrassed by the one-man crime wave that dated back to March 2009.

More than 29 million yen (£194,000) was stolen from homes, offices and shops in the Higashi-Osaka district of the city, with security cameras only catching fleeting images of a masked man dressed from head to toe in black.

Some of the footage showed the burglar running nimbly along the tops of high walls or slipping effortlessly through narrow gaps between buildings, convincing the police that they were looking for a much younger man, the Asahi newspaper reported.

The authorities caught a lucky break this summer, however, when a security camera caught the Heisei Ninja - named after Japan's storied warriors of old and the present imperial era - lowering a black neck warmer from over his face.

The police were able to trace the suspect's route to an abandoned apartment building where Mitsuaki Tanigawa is believed to have prepared meticulously for his night-time exploits.