In a bizarre twist of fate, a burglar was caught by the he stole.

A Daytona Beach man, Michael Dunbar, was accused of lifting an 360 form a poor unnamed soul's home but, with the victim being without a copy of the unit's serial number, Dunbar thought he was in the clear.

The suspected thief promptly made his way down to his local game store and traded the machine in for a measly 32 USD. The local store took photocopies of his driving license as well as noting the serial number, as most stores do when trading in for cash.

As luck would have it, the victim had only recently received the machine back from after a repair. The victim therefore contacted Microsoft to retrieve the system's serial number.

They passed the information on to the local police who found, when they canvassed local games stores, not only the stolen machine but details and a photograph of the person who had traded it in. From there it was an open and shut case.

Here is one time the Xbox 360's poor reliability actually proved useful.

Thanks Kotaku.

By Ewan Aiton