New Zealand police have arrested a safe burglar by using the popular social networking website Facebook to identify and track him down.

Calling it the "first Facebook arrest", Queenstown police in southern New Zealand posted security-camera footage and pictures showing the man's face as he tried to break into the safe of a local tavern on Monday.

"The offender was identified after a movie and images of him were displayed on Facebook. He was identified from members of the public viewing him on Facebook and also seeing him on TV after the Facebook images were displayed on the news," the police station said in a statement on its Facebook page.