When Paul William Peehi answered the phone he had just stolen he didn't expect the call to be from police telling him to take the phone back to Whangārei police station, where he had just taken it from.
Temptation got a bit too much for Peehi when he picked up an unattended phone and slid it into his pocket at the front counter of the Whangārei police station.
A woman inadvertently left her cellphone there but Peehi may or may not have been aware of CCTV cameras that would have picked up his opportunistic act.
Police, however, didn't have to even rely on the recording devices to solve the crime.
They phoned the stolen phone's number and told him to go back to the station and he returned — with the stolen cellphone.