Don’t be fooled by Lilli’s cute cheek whiskers and adorable boopable nose.
This feline is essentially a seasoned criminal.
Lilli lives in Weilheim in Oberbayern, Germany, with Simone Kirchner and her family. Before being adopted, she’d lived with her former owner in a small apartment in a big city, but her owner felt bad about the shortage of space and made the decision to rehome her. Kirchner, who resides in a quiet neighborhood with a yard, volunteered to take Lilli in.
The grateful kitty has been working to thank her ever since.
“Almost every day, she brings us a little present,” Kirchner told The Dodo, “things like branches, apples, stones and moss.”
But recently, Lilli decided to kick things up a notch.
It appears that Lilli got tired of collecting gifts from her backyard and began exploring farther out to change things up.
She brought some yarn home one day.
Kirchner was a little taken aback by Lilli’s colorful present, but figured she must have found it lying on the ground somewhere. No one would be missing a random bunch of wool, right?
But then Lilli came home with an object that had undoubtedly been stolen.
This time, Lilli had found a ball of yarn, some knitting needles and a sock that someone had been very close to completing. Carrying it indoors, it had already begun to unravel. The klepto kitty had claimed a victim.
“She thieved the sock from our neighbor,” Kirchner said. “I felt a bit ashamed, but the neighbor just laughed, so I laughed also.”
Lilli, meanwhile, seemed unrepentant.
It would have been lot simpler for everyone if Lilli had put an end to her criminal spree then. The cat was caught stealing, but instead of giving up, she went all out.
The following thing Lilli stole? a wallet. She took a bag.
Kirchner said that “Lilli entered through the cat flap with the handle in her mouth.” “I was astonished,”
The cat dropped the handbag so Kirchner could pick it up, acting as casually as usual.
Kirchner has no idea whom the bag belongs to, or where it came from. There was nothing inside indicating who might be its rightful owner, so she posted about it on Facebook.
“The thief has struck again!” Kirchner wrote. “If someone is missing this purse, can you please contact me?”
It’s been about two weeks, but so far no one has come forward to claim the purse. Fortunately, in that time, Lilli has evidently decided to lay low for a while to let the heat die down.
She’s returned to gifting her owner more mundane items from the yard — for now.
Kirchner acknowledges that taking up crime is probably not the greatest course of action for a cat, but she is touched that Lilli is interested in her enough to make an effort to win her over with gifts.
She is really intelligent and compassionate, Kirchner said. She is just a thief for other people, not for herself.
