Brazilian authorities seeking to take a bite out of
crime caught a lucky break when a purse-snatcher unwittingly left
behind key evidence that led to the thief's arrest: his own
dentures.
The robber grabbed a woman's handbag in the small town of
Severina, about 430 kilometers (265 miles) from Sao Paulo, and
managed to escape, victim Silvina Julieta Ferreira told local media
on Friday.
The news quickly spread within the community, and the thief
would have remained at large had it not been for an alert farmer
who found the dentures and turned them in to police.
Investigators promptly showed up at the home of 34-year-old
Milton Cesar de Jesus, who was missing most of his front teeth.
"He was told to put on the dentures and they fit perfectly. You
couldn't say they weren't his," town commissioner Aparecido Martins
said.
The accused was left without his false teeth once again,
television stations showed on Friday, as police had taken the
dentures into custody as evidence.