(Photo: AP / Charles Dharapak)A plate featuring steamed meat dumplings, spring rolls, sweet and sour pork, orange beef, General Tso's chicken, Szechuan shrimp, eggplant in garlic sauce, and combination fried rice are arranged on a plate Tuesday, March 20, 2007.

A theif who stole a food delivery driver's car found food in the vehicle and decided that he should deliver the outstanding orders to their customers, police in Hartford, Connecticut have reported.

The thief apparently was not satisfied with only stealing a car from a delivery driver, but he also wanted to collect the money from the deliveries of Chinese food inside the car and so amazingly thought it was a good idea to go about delivering the hot food.

The extraordinary actions by the thief must go down as some of the strangest by a criminal looking to get away with his crime, and contributed to his eventual capture and arrest.

The delivery driver, having noticed his car had been stolen, immediately notified his employers at a Chinese restaurant, who then reported the car theft to police. The Chinese restaurant also took the polite step of informing customers who were waiting for their deliveries that the car had been stolen and that they shouldn't expect their food as soon as expected. However, when the thief turned up at customers' doors delivering the food and taking the payments, it wasn't long until the authorities caught on.

The restaurant heard from one of the customers that their delivery had just been made and that they had received their food as expected.

The Hartford Courant has explained the incident: "Police received a call from a Chinese food delivery driver reporting that his car had just been stolen at Bristow Middle School on Highland Street after he had left it idling to run into the school, police said."

"The driver also called his boss at the restaurant to tell him about the car theft, so that the restaurant could call remaining customers and tell them that their orders were stolen along with the car, police said. The people at the restaurant told the driver that one of the orders had been delivered after the theft, presumably by the car thief, police said."

When police were notified that the thief was fulfilling the deliveries they were informed by the restaurant staff that there were still two more deliveries expected inside the car. Police rushed to the addresses awaiting their food, and as expected the thief turned up in the stolen vehicle and attempted to deliver the food and collect the payment. However, police quickly apprehended the bewildered thief.

Suspect Keith Hinds, 55, was caught red handed, and is now being charged with car theft. Police officers have also said that Hinds was found in possession of drugs and paraphernalia at the time of his arrest.