German thief nailed for selling 1 million stolen screws

Police have arrested a man for stealing more than 1 million screws from his employers and selling them on the Internet.

Police said the 33-year-old assembly worker at an unidentified firm squirreled away screws in a specially designed hiding place and took up to 7,000 of them home every day when he left work.

Over a two-year period, he stole some 1.1 million screws with an estimated value of $155,000, police in the Bavarian city of Wuerzburg said in a statement.

The man sold the screws over the Internet at discount prices, and that alerted police, who wondered where he was getting the vast quantities of components.

The man was arrested on Wednesday at his Wuerzburg apartment. Police said he acknowledged stealing the screws, and is now in custody awaiting formal charges.