Crime stories rarely begin with heavy machinery and end with hooves on pavement. But in the Melikgazi district of Kayseri, central Turkey, a jewellery shop robbery played out in a way that left local police, shop owners, and eventually the internet struggling to process what they had just watched.

CCTV cameras inside and outside the store captured every second of the incident. What they recorded was not a slick, carefully planned heist. It was something far stranger, something that Turkish media would later describe as “like a joke.” A masked figure, a stolen vehicle, a cabinet full of gold, and a four-legged escape plan that nobody saw coming.

Before the night was over, police would launch a search operation, dig stolen gold out of the earth, and wrestle a suspect into a patrol car. But the footage that went viral had nothing to do with the arrest. It had everything to do with how the suspect chose to leave.

Breaking In With Heavy Machinery

Most burglars pick a lock or force a window. Few show up with a forklift. Footage from outside the jewellery shop shows a forklift, believed to have been stolen, rolling up to the storefront. Its metal forks jammed beneath the shop’s security shutters, and within moments, the machine hoisted the shutters upward, peeling open the entrance like a tin can.

A masked suspect climbed off the forklift and forced their way inside. Security camera stills released by Turkish outlet NTV Turkey show the figure wearing a beanie and a surgical mask, face almost entirely hidden. No hesitation. No looking around. Just straight through the broken entrance and into the shop.

Kayseri sits in the heart of Turkey’s Anatolian region, a city known for its history, its commerce, and its gold trade. Jewellery shops line many of its commercial streets, and like most stores in Turkey, heavy metal shutters protect their windows and doors after hours. On any normal night, those shutters would be more than enough. A forklift changed the math entirely.

Smash, Grab, and Scramble

Once inside, the suspect wasted no time. CCTV footage from within the shop shows the figure pushing over a tall display cabinet packed with gold jewellery. Glass shattered on impact. Rings, bracelets, chains, and other pieces spilled across the floor in a heap.

Heavy safes sat elsewhere in the shop, but the suspect either could not open them or could not carry them. Instead of trying, they dropped to their knees and began scooping up whatever loose gold they could reach. Hands moved fast, stuffing pieces into a bag while broken glass scattered around them.

It was messy, loud, and rushed. Nothing about it resembled the kind of precise, calculated robbery that crime films glorify. It looked more like someone ransacking a room in a panic, grabbing what they could before time ran out. And then, bag in hand, the suspect ran.

No Getaway Car. Just a Donkey.

Here is where the story takes its sharpest turn. In almost every robbery, the escape plan depends on speed. A fast car. A motorbike is weaving through the alleys. Sometimes a bicycle, if the thief is desperate. But when this suspect burst out of the jewellery shop clutching a bag of stolen gold, no car was waiting. No motorbike idled at the curb.

A donkey stood there instead. CCTV footage from outside the shop captured the suspect climbing onto the animal and riding away. Not galloping. Not sprinting. Just a donkey moving at whatever pace a donkey decides to move, carrying a masked rider and a bag of gold into the night.

Gazete Barış, a local news outlet, reported that the footage spread rapidly on social media once it surfaced. Commenters struggled to decide whether to be amused or baffled. Some called it the worst getaway plan in criminal history. Others pointed out that donkeys are quieter than cars, leave no tire tracks, and do not show up on license plate databases.

None of that mattered in the end. Because police had something better than a license plate. They had clear CCTV footage of everything.

Police Dig Up the Gold

Kayseri authorities launched a search operation almost immediately after reviewing the security camera recordings. Identifying the suspect did not take long. Officers tracked down a 26-year-old known in reports only by the initials M.Ç.

Video released by police shows the arrest in blunt detail. Officers wrestle the suspect into a patrol car outside a police station. No dramatic standoff. No chase through narrow streets. Just firm hands and a car door closing.

But the stolen gold was not on the suspect when police caught up with them. Approximately 150 grams of gold jewellery had been buried in the ground, hidden in what the suspect presumably hoped would be a safe spot for later retrieval.

Footage shows officers digging the jewellery out of its shallow hiding place, brushing off dirt, and cataloging the recovered items. All of it was returned to the shop owner. According to authorities, prosecutors have begun preparing formal charges, and a full investigation remains ongoing. From forklift to donkey to a hole in the dirt. It was not a sophisticated operation.

A Crime That Became a Punchline

@thedailystar

The suspect was taken into custody and later arrested. #dailystar #donkey #thief

♬ funny – SÓ INSTRUMENTAL

Within hours of the footage going public, the Kayseri donkey heist had taken on a life of its own. Turkish and international media picked up the story with headlines that leaned hard into the absurdity. Social media users turned the donkey into an unwitting celebrity, with some joking about the animal’s “criminal record” and others creating memes imagining the donkey’s side of the story.

What made the incident stick was not the crime itself. Gold shop robberies, while serious, happen with unfortunate regularity around the world. It was the contrast between the brute force of the break-in and the low-tech simplicity of the escape that caught people off guard. A forklift is industrial, aggressive, and loud. A donkey is slow, stubborn, and about as far from a getaway vehicle as you can get.

That gap between expectation and reality gave the story legs, four of them, and turned a local crime report into an international talking point.

For the shop owner, of course, the humor lands differently. A business was damaged. Merchandise was stolen. Even with the gold recovered, the cost of a destroyed storefront and shattered display cases adds up fast. Kayseri’s jewellers depend on security measures that worked perfectly well until someone decided to bring construction equipment to the job.

Not the First Animal Accomplice in Crime

As strange as the donkey getaway sounds, animals and crime have crossed paths before. Just two months earlier, in December 2025, a capuchin monkey went on a multi-day crime spree in Viçosa, a small town in the Rio Grande do Norte state of eastern Brazil. Residents reported the monkey entering homes, raiding kitchens, and biting anyone who got too close.

Footage that went viral showed the capuchin clutching a large knife and bashing it against a wall, an image that was equal parts terrifying and absurd. In another clip, the monkey stole a coffee pot from a household. In yet another, it smashed a bird cage against a wall repeatedly until the cage broke open, freeing a pet bird inside. Whether the monkey intended to liberate the bird or simply enjoyed destroying things remains up for debate.

Several homes in the village lost power after the capuchin tampered with electrical wiring during its raids. Residents called for help, and military police eventually responded. Officers captured the monkey and placed it in a small cage in the back of a patrol car, an image that circulated widely online under the caption of the monkey being “arrested” and “jailed.” Brazilian wildlife authorities later took custody of the animal. No formal charges were filed, for obvious reasons.

When Crime Gets Weird, the Internet Pays Attention

Stories like these cut through the noise of daily news precisely because they refuse to follow the script. Robberies are supposed to be tense, calculated, and grim. When a donkey or a knife-wielding monkey enters the picture, tension breaks in a way people cannot resist sharing. A crime report becomes a conversation starter. A security camera clip becomes a meme.

But beneath the humor, real consequences remain. A shop owner in Kayseri is repairing a destroyed storefront. A 26-year-old suspect faces prosecution. Prosecutors are building a case. And somewhere in central Turkey, a donkey has presumably gone back to doing whatever donkeys do when they are not serving as unlikely getaway vehicles on the evening news.

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