Finnish police admit they did not expect to use an insect to solve a crime
Police in Finland believe they have caught a car thief from a DNA sample taken from a mosquito they noticed inside an abandoned vehicle.
Finding the car in Seinaejoki, north of Helsinki, police saw that the mosquito had recently sucked blood and decided to send the insect for analysis.
The DNA found from laboratory tests matched a man on the police register.
The suspect denies stealing the car and says he was just hitch-hiking a lift with a man.
The car was stolen in June in the town of Lapua, some 380km (235 miles) north of the Finnish capital, the AFP news agency reports.
It was recovered several weeks later in Seinaejoki, about 25km from where it disappeared.
Sakari Palomaeki, the police inspector in charge of the case, said it was the first time Finnish police had used an insect to solve a crime.
"It is not usual to use mosquitoes. In training we were not told to keep an eye on mosquitoes at crime scenes," he said.
"It is not easy to find a small mosquito in a car, this just shows how thorough the crime scene investigation was," he added.
A prosecutor must now decide if the sample is strong enough for charges to be pressed.
FernwehHermit on April 6th, 2017 at 20:43 UTC »
I had a package delivered from Amazon yesterday. It was a cell phone case that had a fake Styrofoam phone pad and some wax paper laid over it, all inside a ziploc baggy. When I opened the phone and moved the wax paper a mosquito came flying out and is now somewhere in my house. My first thought was, "this is how the world ends."
HauschkasFoot on April 6th, 2017 at 17:47 UTC »
Seems pretty involved for a stolen car
mattreyu on April 6th, 2017 at 16:37 UTC »
How do they know that the mosquito bit the car thief? Maybe the mosquito just has a taste for the blood of criminals.