Alex Mackintosh holds his Ginger Tom Cointreau who picks up socks from around the neighbourhood.

It was the purrfect crime - a dark night, on a sleepy Hamilton street, no witnesses, and a deft pawed thief.

Cointreau the cat was able to pull off his best burglary yet this week when he swiped a Hamilton detective's identification from an unknown location in Hillcrest.

The prolific prowler who regularly trawls the streets for socks and other playful items to return to his owners was unwilling to give up his loot without a fight.

Peter Drury Ginger Tom Cointreau picks up socks from around the neighbourhood, but his best find was a Police ID badge.

"On Wednesday night I had a few girls over and he came down the driveway dragging the tag underneath," said owner Helen Mackintosh.

"At first I thought he had got it out of one of our bags, it was very protective of it, he wouldn't give it up and kept running away with it."

After a five-minute struggle, Mackintosh wrestled the tag from the feisty feline and contacted police.

Hamilton Senior Sergeant Andrew O'Reilly said police received a report from a woman saying her cat had located a police identification badge on Wednesday.

"It was unknown how the cat came to be in possession of the identification, but police were keeping an open mind," he said, laughing.

An officer was sent to retrieve the identification and it has been returned to the officer, understood to be staying in a nearby home while moving properties.

"This is a highly unusual incident as pets generally aren't into theft, but that's one for the books," O'Reilly said.

The family adopted the cat from the SPCA last December, but the offending didn't start until March after Mackintosh's father introduced him to a tie.

"Our boarder noticed he was bringing in socks, some much too small for any of us."

In the last two months, Cointreau, named after the orange liqueur and in style with Mackintosh's other former cats, Opal and Nera, has pilfered almost a dozen socks from the Hillcrest area.

Mackintosh said Cointreau tends to go for the black dress socks, but is known to swipe a few coloured [ones].

With a number of other domineering cats in the Somme Cres, Knighton Rd neighbourhood, Mackintosh said Cointreau tends to keep to his own territory.

"We are not sure how far he goes. He is just on the loose. I don't know where he is getting them from. If he is getting into houses, he drags them back, underneath him to the house.

"We are not sure if he managed to get the tag from the officer's house, where they were staying, or perhaps it was dropped."

The family now have a stockpile of socks. Mackintosh is thinking of starting a lost and found and perhaps, if it continues, alerting the neighbours to the ongoing offending.

"He is a mischievous cat, very quick, a bit of a ninja, who loves lurking down the hallway and jumping out."

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