BENTONG: The mysterious disappearance of women undergarments which were hung to dry outside housing areas here was solved on Wednesday.
A 36-year-old foreigner, believed to have a fetish for women undergarments, was caught on closed-circuit television camera (CCTV) stealing the items at Kampung Kemansur here before keeping them in his rented house in the vicinity.
Policemen who raided the house were surprised to find a huge collection of stolen undergarments kept in various parts of the suspect's room.
District police chief Superintendent Zaiham Mohd Kahar said the authorities were alerted about the incident when a 54-year-old man lodged a police report claiming his daughter's undergarments had gone missing on Aug 4.
He said the man claimed that his neighbour informed that an unidentified individual was spotted wandering in his house compound at about 3pm.
"The stranger was behaving suspiciously and minutes later his daughter informed that several pieces of undergarments which had been hanging on a clothesline at the back of their house were missing. Policemen had examined the CCTV recording obtained from the victim's neighbour.
"Policemen managed to track down the suspect and went to his house located in the same neighbourhood at about 11.30pm. Upon searching the premises, policemen discovered hundreds of women's undergarments in his room," he said, adding the suspect might be involved in stealing the items for more than a year.
Zaiham said investigations revealed the suspect whose travel passport had expired in Oct 2015 was unemployed.
He said the suspect had been remanded for 14 days to facilitate investigations under Section 379 of the Penal Code for theft and Section 15(1)(c) of the Immigration Act 1959/63 for overstaying.
Zaiham said police were investigating if the suspect was involved in stealing the undergarments in other areas in the district.