For weeks police were puzzled by repeated thefts from suitcases firmly locked inside the luggage compartment of a coach travelling between Girona Airport and Barcelona.

After one journey when bags had, again, been broken into, one of the passengers pointed out a large suspicious suitcase. Police opened it and to their amazement found a man curled up inside. With the help of an accomplice, who was also arrested, the six-footcontortionist had crammed himself inside.

His friend bought a bus ticket and put the case into the luggage hold. Once the bus set off the man in the case clambered out, opened other suitcases in the hold looking for valuables. Before the bus pulled into the stop in Barcelona he had zipped himself back into his hiding place. Police are reported to have described the crime as an 'open and shut case'.