Winston Gould, of Wanaka, has joined the ranks of Otago's most infamous cat burglars.
The 2-year-old Burmese-Bengal cat was named and shamed on an Upper Clutha community Facebook page recently by his ''embarrassed'' owner Rose Gould, after a collection of stolen goods accumulated at her house.
Winston had been ''on the prowl stealing socks again in the Meadowstone Dr area'', Mrs Gould wrote.
His haul included a pair of school socks still new in their packet, and ''someone's precious Santa''.
Within minutes of Mrs Gould's Facebook post going online, Winston's loot, shown in an attached photo, was recognised by one of its owners.
''Most of that is ours!! Granma knitted the Santa,'' Meg Gibbon wrote.
Mrs Gould said Winston began bringing home socks and dumping them by his food bowl last year and by October there were about 10 pairs.
After canvassing the neighbourhood, she returned all of them to the Gibbon house, several hundred metres away on a street at the rear of their property.
Just before Christmas, the knitted Santa turned up next to Winston's bowl.
A holiday stint at a cattery curbed the cat's thieving ways temporarily, before more socks started appearing this year, prompting Mrs Gould's online appeal to find the owners.
All of the latest items, with the exception of the as-yet-unclaimed school socks, had again come from the Gibbon house.
Trudi Lowe-Gibbon said she noticed last year her sock supply had drastically dwindled and blamed her daughters, until her husband, Dave, spotted Winston running out the door with a pair of socks in his mouth.
Trudi and Dave left their bedroom sliding door open at night for their 17-year-old Burmese cat, which explained how ''Sock Thief'' (as the Gibbon family started calling Winston) had been gaining entry.
The socks were all taken from the bedroom wardrobe, while the more than 20-year-old Santa was swiped from under the family Christmas tree.
''We know where he lives now so we can just pop round and get some socks when we run out.''
