The man – a 33-year-old assembly worker at an unidentified company – squirrelled away screws in a specially designed hiding place and spirited up to 7,000 of them home every day when he left work, police said.

Over a two-year period, he stole some 1.1 million screws with an estimated value of C$155,000, police in the Bavarian city of Wuerzburg said in a statement.

The man allegedly sold the screws over the Internet at discount prices – ultimately alerting police, who wondered where he was getting them.

The man was arrested Wednesday at his Wuerzburg apartment. Police said he acknowledged stealing the screws and was in custody awaiting formal charges.