Weird Thefts: Russian Police Arrest Man For Stealing An Entire Road

Russian police have arrested a man who allegedly stole an entire road in the northwestern federal district of the country, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported Thursday.

The 40-year-old accused man, a resident of Syktyvkar city, the capital of Komi Republic, admitted to stealing 82 reinforced concrete slabs that formed a one-mile road that connects the village of Parcheg with the Vychegda River.

The accused used an industrial manipulator, a machine with a crane system that can drag, lift and move loads up to several tons, to dismantle the slabs from the road and to load them onto trucks, the Russian interior department said in a statement.

The robbery was discovered when police stopped the three trucks carrying the slabs during a routine inspection.

The slabs were worth 200,000 rubles, or $6,100, according to the investigators.

The accused is charged with theft and faces up to two years in prison if convicted.

Although, this was the first time an entire road was stolen, incidents of weird thefts are not rare in Russia.

In June, a 23-year-old Volgograd resident had stolen a bridge over the Nozma River, in the village of Frolovo, with a welding torch. The man, using his personal tractor, dragged the bridge to his home and dismantled it.

The police reportedly traced the tractor tracks to the culprit’s house and recovered the bridge parts.

Similar incidents were reported in 2009 and 2010 in different parts of Russia, where the culprits stole metal bridges and sold them as scrap.

In May, unidentified thieves robbed a bicycle belonging to a Moscow circus bear. According to the local media reports, the bicycle, worth 35,000 rubles, or about $1,077, was stolen from a circus which was touring the Russian republic of Tatarstan. The bicycle, which the animal used to perform circus tricks, was made from special steel and was unfit for human use, reports said.