It appears that some people were pretty inspired by the story of Les Miserables, but this story is definitely anything but a literary masterpiece. Although, it definitely has its share of stolen food.

We’re not talking about a loaf of bread here, but about massive amounts of donated dog food from a shelter – and the perpetrator did it more than once.

The shelter staff estimates that this woman has stolen hundreds of pounds of dog food – and she did it on a regular basis.

The food in question was kindly donated by volunteers for the shelter dogs – not the woman.

After the first few times, the animal shelter decided to install a camera system to discourage the thief from doing it again. They also put up warning signs which made it very clear that the place was under surveillance.

None of this, however, stopped this woman from stealing food from a non-profit shelter – who counted on the food donations to keep their dogs healthy.

The ramifications of the theft were large: over 2,000 dogs a year depended on this food, and the Oregon shelter also sends leftovers to partnered animal rescue organizations in California.

In other words, this food was crucial and was going to animals who needed it the most – but apparently, this woman didn’t feel any remorse or guilt at all.

The woman kept showing up month after month, often taking several dog food packets under her arms and walking away.

“Since we got our camera back in April, we’ve noticed every other month one particular person is coming in and going through the garbage cans and just taking food and walking off with it,” the director of the animal shelter Debra Bowen said.

The criminal always operates in the same way: during night time, she’ll approach the shelter in a red car and spends some time looking in the donated food bins.

“They take at least half of what is here, if not more,” the director added.

These bins are located outside of the building so that people can donate the food to the shelter whenever they can or want.

Apparently, this woman thinks it’s necessary to abuse the kindness and generosity of animal lovers for her own personal or financial gain.

“If they would come to us, I would give them the food. If somebody said ‘I really need dog food, I can’t afford it’ or whatever we’d be happy to give them the food,” Debra said about the thefts.

One day, shelter staff posted the surveillance footage on Facebook, hoping that someone would be able to identify the thief.

“At Oregon Dog Rescue we love our community and try to help as many people and dogs as we can,” they wrote. “Over the past few months, we have had the same individual on our security cameras stealing dog food from inside of our front gate multiple times.”

“These food bins are donations from the dog loving public meant to be for rescue dogs!” The post continued. “These bins are left inside of our gate so that the public may drop off food anytime.

“If you know this woman please tell her to stop stealing from the dogs! We are happy to provide food for those in dire need but stealing full garbage cans full of food is not acceptable!”

Someone who saw the video actually knew who the woman was, and forwarded her identity to the police.

The police handled the situation, but it was never known if the woman was pressed with charges or how the investigation concluded.

You can view the footage of the theft in the video below.

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Source: KATU News, The Animal Rescue Site