Thief deposits loot with victim

A man poses with coins as he empties a money jar in central England January 16, 2007.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Three days after stealing a rare collection of coins, a thief in Germany took them to the bank for safe keeping -- and delivered them into the hands of the man he had robbed.

"I don't think the thief was expecting that," said a spokesman for police in the western city of Dortmund on Tuesday.

Soon after the thief made the deposit, a bank worker handling the coins recognized them as the set worth some 50,000 euros ($80,000) that had been stolen from his house.

Police tracked down the 36-year-old suspect and arrested him, securing a haul of other stolen goods in the process.

(Reporting by Dave Graham, editing by Erik Kirschbaum and Mary Gabriel)