‘We are powerless to stop him’: Family seek owners of stolen property

Wednesday, 17 June 2026

Even for Leao, the haul was ambitious.

On May 25, Prasanna Bandarage opened his front door to discover what appeared to be the aftermath of a very small burglary. Arranged on the doorstep were a pair of pants, a yellow long-sleeved top and a pair of Crocs.

'I couldn’t believe my eyes. I said, “Why, Leao? Why is a cat doing this to me?''

For more than a year, Leao has been conducting a one-feline crime spree throughout his Upper Hutt neighbourhood.

Under the cover of darkness he pinches shoes, clothing, toys and assorted household items, dragging them home and depositing them for his increasingly bewildered owners to find.

His thieving has become so incessant that Bandarage and his wife now keep an assortment of boxes to store the goods.

At one stage the collection included more than 70 pairs of shoes. Not 70 shoes - seventy pairs. Leao almost always goes back for the second one.

“Yesterday he bought home some work boots, great big ones with steel caps,” said an exasperated Bandarage on Wednesday.

“I said ”Leao, how do you even manage to do this?“”

In May alone, aside from the piles of clothes, Leao delivered a toy alligator, various hats, an empty egg carton, towel, a couple of pots, a lot of water balloons, and a plastic bowl. Also a few nappies - thankfully unused.

And June isn’t shaping up to be much better. Already it includes more plastic pots, some chalk, a host of seedling containers and many more of what appears to be his greatest weakness: Crocs.

“He is definitely entering people’s houses. We are powerless to stop him.”

Leao joined the Bandarages about six years ago. There were three sons still living at home when the family set off to adopt a kitten.

“He was the last one left - nobody wanted him because he was black”.

For the next five years Leao behaved himself. He loved the boys, curled up on their beds and did perfectly normal cat things - like sleeping and eating.

But then things changed. After the two eldest sons left home their parents started finding things on the doorstep. At first the deliveries were sporadic, then quickly became relentless.

“We could not understand it. We thought someone might be targeting us - with clothes and shoes and rubbish.”

The game was up when Bandarage and his wife staged a stake-out, taking turns to stay up though the night keeping watch for the offender.

“That’s when we found out it was Leao. We could not believe our eyes.”

The first thing they did was seek professional help. A vet was consulted, then a cat expert, but neither could explain why a previously normal pet had suddenly embarked on a life of crime.

Eventually the family went to the police.

“Sadly there was nothing they could do. They told us to make some flyers so people could come and get their belongings back.”

The campaign initially met with some success. A handful of people reclaimed their items, a nearby neighbour was identified as a repeat victim, and the boxes of shoes slowly began to empty.

“People are not angry, but it’s very embarrassing when somebody knocks on your door and says they need their shoes back for work.”

While Bandarage is desperate to reunite people with their stolen items, Leao is now a subject in a California study into unusual cat behaviour.

And if anyone is missing a pair of steel-cap work boots, his owner has one final piece of advice: “Please check out Leao the Bandit on Facebook.”