"Through our investigations, we found the grids had been cut - but with deep tooth prints," a local police spokesman told the Chongqing Business Daily.

Their inquiries led them to interview a man who revealed he was sharing a hotel room with someone who could crack walnuts with their teeth. The man, 23-year-old Xiong, confessed to the crimes after revealing he could not find a job. He told police he had grown up in a mountain town and had developed strong, sharp teeth by using them to open the walnuts which grew there in abundance.

Xiong found he could chew open any steel bars up to 1cm in thickness, by prising open welding spots with his teeth.

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"I only failed once in the past two years. Once I bit on a 2cm thick steel grid, and the first bite nearly dislocated my jaw," he said. "I never take other tools with me when breaking in. That's why I never got stopped by patrolling officers at night."