Well, here is my stole and recovered story.
I was tending to my front garden one day when I see this massive shirtless guy walking up the road with a huge pot plant. It was a weird scene so stuck with me.
Later that day two Thai guys walk up the road and ask me if I had seen anyone with a pot plant. I tell them that I had, they tell me they own the local Thai restaurant down the road, and someone has stolen the big pot plants from out the front. I gave them a description of the guy, but I told hem I didn't know where he went.
Anyway, next morning I get up, and one of my pot plants is missing. After cursing for a while, I sat staring out the back window musing on life. When I realize what I am looking at is my pot plant in the back window of an apartment three buildings away. A very low rent building known to house questionable types (the local nickname was junkie towers)
So I got out the zoom lens, took a a couple of pictures and hunted through my garden photos until I found a picture of the said pot plant. I went down to the police station with the photos and told the my story. Well, the police like nothing more than an open-and -shut case. So they got a warrant, and went around and knocked on the door that afternoon. What they found was a veritable treasure chest of goods taken from around the neighborhood, with pot plants being a particular specialty. The police told me tehy're easy to sell at markets and don't have serial numbers etc. but there were bikes, lawn furniture, you name it, anything that could be stolen without breaking and entering.
The guy turned out to have a warrant for his arrest for an assault charge, and a couple of other things. The detective eventually asked if I woid testify at a hearing against him, which I agreed to, despite being a bit nervous of the size of the guy and his previous assault charge.
The big day in court came and the defending attorney made a big song and dance and tried to suggest that the fact that his client had an identical pot plant to mine was mere coincidence. I suggested that the amount of combinations of pot plants was a very high number of permutations, to which he triumphantly declared that given there were possibly thousands like it, it coudld be merely similar and not exactly the same. I countered with the fact that the odds of a similar pot plant showing up at the exact same time as mine went missing were too high to be mere chance.
Anyway, the guy went to jail, I forget how long now. Th detective told me it was some of the best civilian witness testimony he had seen (I'm sure he says that to everyone). I got my pot plant back, complete with evidence tag that I left on for fun until it disintegrated.
I must say, being in the witness stand was quite harrowing, having to point to someone in court and argue you're not a liar. I had shaky and sweaty hands afterwards, a combination of nerves and adrenalin. All that over a $20 pot plant, but a principle was at stake and was not going to let this creep get away with it.