Throwback: How Finnish police used dead mosquito to identify a thief in 2008

In 2008, Police in Finland reportedly caught a car thief after they took a DNA sample from a dead mosquito.

“A police patrol carried out an inspection of the car and they noticed a mosquito that had sucked blood. It was sent to the laboratory for testing, which showed the blood belonged to a man who was in the police registers,” The police inspector Sakari Palomaeki said.

The suspect insisted he did not steal the car, saying he had hitchhiked and was given a lift by a man driving the car.

The Police inspector added: “It is not easy to find a small mosquito in a car. This just shows how thorough the crime scene investigation was.”

“It is not usual to use mosquitoes. In training we were not told to keep an eye on mosquitoes at crime scenes.'” He said.